Semper Augustus
by Aubrette
Summary: Book 3 into the pregnancy of book 4 with a twist at the end. A more mature, incisive look into the B&E relationship while struggling with the reality of Jacob. Rated M for sex, language, violence and all the other things that make stories awesome.
1. The Way Things Are

_**Author's Note: **__Welcome to _Semper Augustus_, the third (and penultimate!) book in the __Bella Swan is Fat and Ugly__ tetrology! It's okay if you haven't read my previous two stories since I hold pretty tightly to canon. My greatest changes are in character depth and breadth, however I did stray a few times for the sake of making things more interesting. You can skip this part if you've already read the other stories._

_1) Bella is physically different. In the first book she deals with being awkwardly tall and overweight, but in the second book she bonds with Jacob through a running and martial arts program. She becomes more familiar and confident with her body and has a habit of punching, kicking, and fighting for herself. She's pretty kick-ass._

_2) The quality that makes Bella super-attractive to certain vampires has nothing to do with freesia and everything to do with hope. She smells like hope and, to Edward, that hope was in the form of an ability to be human again. He had to overcome the idea that drinking Bella's blood would somehow cure him and it was this struggle which endears him to Bella._

_3) My approach to sex and romance is different than Smeyer's: Jacob and Bella actually kiss in the second book, something that felt inevitable and adds a layer of confusion to this triangle. When Bella kisses Jacob, she's agreeing to more than just a fling, she's agreeing to join his side. But when Edward shows up again, she immediately betrays Jake. Also, since Edward's no longer affected by Bella's scent ever since he imagined she was dead, he decides to stop saying __'No' all the time and to start saying 'Yes'._

_**Semper Augustus is based on the Twilight series which is owned and imagined by Stephanie Meyer. Semper Augustus is rated M for language, violence, and sex, all the things that make a good story. You've been warned!**_

You have been telling the people

That this is the eleventh hour.

Now, you must go and tell the people

That THIS is the hour,

And there are things to be considered.

Where are you living? What are you doing?

What are your relationships?

Are you in the right relationship?

Where is your water?

Know your garden.

It is time to speak your truth.

Create your community,

Be good to each other.

Do not look outside yourself for a leader.

-Thomas Banyacya, Hopi Prophesy to the Nation

**Part the first**

Edward brought in the mail.

Bella watched from the window, pretending to make tea in the kitchen. It was surreal, seeing him in such a domestic role. Charlie met him on the porch, holding his hand out for the stack of envelopes. Edward flashed a perfect smile while handing them over but Bella guessed Charlie wouldn't be impressed. This was a new ritual, born out of being grounded, where Edward was allowed over for short bursts of time.

"If he's coming over regularly," Charlie had said over breakfast two months ago, "then he has to tithe one hour to me each time." Bella sputtered and choked on her oatmeal. A tip to the wise: oatmeal should never find its way into the nasal cavity.

When Bella had determined that there wasn't a raisin lodged in her lungs, she asked the obvious question.

"Why? I thought you hated him!"

"Hate is a strong word, Bells," Charlie said, sipping his coffee and maintaining a poker face, "But it is entirely apt for the situation. Yes, I hate your goddamned boyfriend."

"Dad," Bella protested. Until recently, Charlie had been the kind of dad who apologized for swears as strong as _hell_.

"Well, you're over-fond of him," he had continued, "I want to be convinced. Maybe his magic will rub off on me, or maybe I'll put together a strong enough argument to bring you to your senses."

When Bella told Edward about this development he smiled, "Oh, Charles Ferdinand Swan, you are in for a treat."

"His middle name isn't Ferdinand," Bella began to say but Edward was on a roll.

"It doesn't matter that I can't read his more vocal thoughts, I can get the gist. I can win this one! He has no idea who he is up against." A playful smile revealed his shiny teeth. Bella was still surprised by how stunted his incisors were. He didn't look like a vampire at all—except for the eerie beauty thing. She decided to let her cocky boyfriend and domineering father have peeing contests in the kitchen for an hour every afternoon. What did she have to lose?

"Bells, looks like a school response," Charlie said, flipping through the mail. That was another development: Edward made her apply to colleges. He had plenty of reasons, but it did help put him on Charlie's good side.

"I'll look at it later," she said, "Edward has more applications for me to fill out so I'll do it then."

"You sure?" Charlie asked. Then, without waiting for an answer he said, "Hey, this looks like it's from Jacob—"

Bella snatched at the card, shoving it in her pocket.

"Thanks, Dad. I'll leave you and Edward alone." She rushed up the stairs and Charlie poured out two cups of tea for him and Edward. Charlie had become a surprising fan of tea, and he was now experimenting with different brews. She heard him saying,

"This one's infused with grapefruit," as she closed her bedroom door. She tried to pretend Charlie hadn't really said that.

She tore at the seal of the envelope, surprised it wasn't a postcard like the ones she had been sending him every other day for the past five weeks. But it was a postcard. The message was just too personal for prying eyes:

_Please stop. XXI __can__'t__don__'t__You__'re too__It__'s_XX_ Nothing has changed. I__'m still betrayed. -J_

It was one of her postcards. He had whited out the picture and written over it in sharpie. She flipped it over to see what she had written to him on the other side.

_Walkies?!_

She lay back on her bed. It had been an attempt at humor and apparently hadn't gone over well at all. She missed their ritual runs, and now that he was basically a dog she thought it would be a cute joke. Well she wouldn't stop. She'd write him whole letters if she had to. It was then that she caught some of the conversation going on in the kitchen below her. She crept toward the bedroom door, creaking it open slightly to eavesdrop.

"How old were you when you were orphaned?"

"Twelve," Edward lied smoothly.

"I'm sorry about your past, Edward," Charlie sighed, "I can't imagine what you've had to go through. But you can't blame your past on your present actions. I can be sympathetic but there's nothing you can say to make me forgive you for what you did to my daughter." Bella wondered how they got on this tangent but she listened anyway. "You bust up my daughter all to hell and just when she was climbing back and forgetting you, you waltz in and resettle. Why'd you break her heart so bad in the first place? You tell me that."

_Yikes_, Bella thought. Usually Charlie just made Edward fold tarps or chop wood, something Edward had been unusually good at.

"You'd be surprised by how much we have in common, sir," Edward said lightly, "I agree: my past may color my actions, but it does not determine them. Like you, I often don't like myself very much either and for all the same reasons. Bella is aware of some of my reasons for leaving, but you deserve to know as well."

"Damn right I do," Charlie said. Bella had tiptoed to the stairwell, avoiding all the creaking boards. She rested her head on the wall, listening while sitting on the top step. Edward began.

"I was intensely disturbed by the previous spring, when our passions got the better of us and we left Forks. Our little drama went very badly for Bella and I recognized the common thread: me. I thought that perhaps I was just tired of Forks, or I hated the constrictions of high school, but eventually I realized my problems were more… innate.

"She tried to convince me otherwise, and I let her. Say what you will about me, but Bella is persuasive. I wanted her to be right about me.

"The catalyst for my hasty departure is probably not known even to Bella, but it was at her birthday party hosted at our house."

Bella's eyes widened and she leaned closer.

"We had a little champagne at the party. I was raised with a strict childhood and have therefore been abstemious—"

"—Cut the crap, Ed," Charlie interrupted. Edward cleared his throat,

"You're right, sir. Sorry. Carlisle respects alcohol, and Bella didn't have any, but I did. In fact, I had well too much. I'd been agitated ever since I'd let Bella get hurt so badly and I found that the champagne did something to calm my agitation.

"I did not hurt your daughter, but I did knock over a table and some glassware. And I caught a reflection of myself: I saw what I was, and what I could be. Apparently I'm angry when I am drunk, a monster. Bella deserved better than that, and I knew I'd never be able to just talk her out of it."

"You aren't endearing your cause here, Ed," Charlie warned.

"I don't intend to, sir. I intend to tell you the truth. I now see that it was selfish of me to take control of the relationship and not confide in Bella. To be quite honest, I am not entirely sure myself why your daughter should fall for someone like me. But what I have learned is gratitude: whether I deserve her love or not, I cannot take it for granted or abuse it in any way."

"That's a tall order," Charlie said, "You shouldn't make those kind of promises. We all take each other for granted, you know."

"That's true, sir," Edward began, but Charlie interrupted,

"You can call me 'Charlie' like everybody else, Ed."

"Thank you, Charlie."

"It doesn't mean I like you yet. Are you getting help for that anger problem of yours?"

"I've been in private counseling ever since I left Forks, and I am continuing those practices today."

Bella decided she'd eavesdropped enough. She stood up and began to descend the stairs, cutting their conversation about ten minutes short. She pretended to flip through the mail, looking for the packet from Alaska University. She opened it disinterestedly, scanning the contents. College had once sounded magical to her, a place where she could reinvent herself and see the world. Now she felt world-weary and cluttered with all kinds of Bellas. She didn't have a career trajectory, she had no idea what kind of future she wanted in the real world. She wasn't sure she wanted to be part of the real world—but Edward insisted.

"Oh," she said, raising her voice, "I got accepted to University of Alaska." Edward and Charlie's conversation had turned more affable in her presence.

"So did I!" Edward said in surprise. She smiled to herself, he was a fantastic actor.

The phone rang, Mike wanted her to come in early to work and she jumped at the excuse to leave the house. She wanted to think about The Jake Problem, but everyone had abruptly dropped Team Jacob except her. She needed privacy.

"I'm going in early, enjoy your tea," she said, heading out the door with a wave. She left the two men alone, sipping grapefruit-infused tea at the kitchen table. _Weird._

* * *

At work she started her shift the way she always did, by calling the Black phone and leaving a message.

"Jake I'm at work until nine-thirty. I can get you sneakers at discount, we have Reeboks for fifteen bucks if you let me buy 'em for you. Size fourteen. Neutral territory… Okay, well… Bye." She sighed. She hadn't seen him since she'd gotten back from Italy. That one encounter was all she had of him, and watching him curl into himself and rend had been a bad memory.

She stashed away as many size fourteen clearance sneakers as she could, knowing the wolves always needed them. Then she got to work, ignoring her co-worker who leered from a distance. For an insane few weeks while Edward was gone she had almost been crazy enough to screw him. She didn't like to think back to those days. As she sized the men's section she heard Mike call out,

"Visitor." She turned in hope but it wasn't the Quileute boy. It wasn't any Quileute, just Alice.

"Hey, Alice," Bella smiled. "Looking for something?"

"Yes," said the clairvoyant distantly, "I need hiking boots that double as party chic."

"Sounds like that will take a long time to find," Bella suggested.

"Maybe," her friend smiled, following her to the hiking section. They pretended to look at boots and Bella made an awkward attempt to get news on Jacob.

"You know I can't see the future of the wolves," Alice reminded her, "just the big ol' nothing that keeps sucking them in. Counterintuitive to think we create our own enemies, isn't it?"

"Actually," Bella said, re-shelving a box with a sigh, "that sounds pretty true to life. They aren't the enemy, Alice. They're protectors."

"What are they protecting? The deer?" she laughed.

"They've kept Victoria away for awhile now," Bella added quietly. Alice scrunched her face.

"Emmett thinks that's her work happening in Seattle," she whispered, "all those murders. But they're so messy and stupid, Jasper says it looks more like one rogue Newborn. I think she forgot you, maybe left someone behind. The Volturi will take care of him in time."

Their conversation fell silent as Alice pretended to examine hiking boots. Then Bella asked,

"If I get a tattoo before I turn, would it show up on my vampire skin?"

"Hmm…" Alice thought, always eager to play the _When Bella__'s A Vampire_ game, "I don't know that one. Decide on a tattoo and we'll see. Do you have one in mind?"

Bella had raided the local library after Edward had come back. The months of apathy had left her voracious for books and without Jacob to keep her company she spent long hours reading. Recently she'd discovered stories about something called "broken tulips". Broken tulips were infected with a virus that rendered them unnaturally beautiful but basically sterile. They only lasted a short while before going entirely extinct, and in the peak of Tulip Mania back in the seventeenth century people had sold entire farms for a single bulb. Their beauty was unnatural, parasitic and ephemeral.

"Yes," Bella said, "but I don't know where I would put it. The _Semper Augustus_, it's the most expensive broken tulip ever sold."

"Carlisle is too young for _Tulipomania_," Alice said with a smile. It was rare to find something from before his time, "but there was a second, smaller bubble not long afterward. Maybe you could ask him about it." Alice looked Bella up and down, trying to think where a tulip should go on the frumpy human body. Without Jacob, Bella had kept up her morning runs and healthy eating, but still put back a few pounds. She wasn't proud of her figure but it didn't seem to really matter any more if she would eventually be a moving Grecian statue. Still, it didn't hurt to try and feel pretty every now and then.

"Your wrist, growing upward from the tendon. No, not that wrist, the left one." Alice pointed to Bella's unmarred arm. "There!" Alice said, finding a future with human Bella and that tattoo, "Okay, hold it…" Bella watched Alice squint, trying to figure out if the ink would carry through the transformation. Then she shook her head sadly,

"No, wiped out entirely. But the scar, of course, would stay."

"You mean I could cover my body in tattoos and they would just disappear?" Bella asked. She rather liked the intricate _grottesche decorazioni_ she'd glimpsed in Italy. Weeds, flowers, birds and demons all curling in vines along her skin. That might be apt, too.

"You really want that tattoo, huh?" The vision hadn't budged.

"No reason not to get it now," Bella said with a forced smile.

She'd grown even closer to Alice, who was now the only other vampire attending Forks High, as well as a vocal proponent for the Make Bella a Vampire movement. While Bella was relieved to have a confidant and ally, she wasn't as game to go through the change as she let on. She had already experienced a fleeting few minutes of the venom, and it didn't do well to dwell on that memory. She told herself that she had time before she had to change, maybe a few years even. Yet whenever Alice offered, Bella was too afraid to see a drawing of herself in vampire form. It was a matter of sacrifice and compromise, not improvement. To her, this was the only solution to a difficult problem.

There was another subject which she kept to herself, driving her away from her home and snarling all her relationships into tension knots. Even after fighting with Edward and demanding that their relationship be entirely transparent, Bella found herself growing defensively opaque. She kept the returned postcards in her dresser alongside photos, notes, and old memories of a boy she'd once tried to save. She waited to be alone when she wrote and mailed her pleas for reconciliation to Jacob. Edward knew, he had to know, but it was taboo. A silence welled up between her and her lover and even as she prepared to give her life for him, Bella felt she was becoming estranged from Edward.

* * *

He tapped lightly on her window, asking to be let in. These visits never counted toward the tithe. If they did, Charlie would have to spend five or six more hours each day with the vampire.

"Hey," he said in a soft voice. She turned and welcomed a deep, slow kiss, letting her worries about Jacob subside. "Esme says she's gaining ground on her research. Maybe that will help." He meant the mythical studies Esme did in her free time. She was trying to find other occurrences of shape-shifters reacting to predators. He was apologizing for their fight that morning, a fight in which Bella had tried to bring up Jacob.

"Your presence makes the children phase," Bella said sadly. "It's just one of those things." Edward was still hoping that she was wrong. He ran a hand through his hair, reluctant to believe that his existence ruined the lives of people he'd never even met. He had made it clear that he couldn't understand why Bella wanted to be a vampire, not when he had to deal with these kinds of responsibilities.

"Maybe she'll find an antidote. We'll be out of here in a few months anyway," he smiled.

"Carlisle can't leave the hospital again," Bella began.

"Not tonight, Bella," Edward interrupted her. "Please?"

She nodded. It had been a rough day. They kissed again and let their mouths speak to each other.

They were laying on her bedroom floor. The bed itself was too creaky and Bella worried too much about being caught whenever they made out. In the weeks since the Cullens had returned to Forks, Bella and Edward were either fighting or making up, drawn to the extremes of their personalities. Jacob Black was a heavy presence, ghosting through the periphery of their relationship. He silenced Edward and Bella, cutting them off from each other. The lovers would find themselves coiled together nightly, letting their bodies communicate when their voices couldn't.

She was on her back, Edward laying beside her with his hand on the bare skin of her stomach. He touched the soft, sensitive skin, making her stretch marks feel like beautiful tiger stripes. The coolness of his skin made it so one of them had to always be clothed. Today it was Edward, shielding her from his bathroom-tile chill. She rolled to her side, her mouth on his, and with a gentle push indicated that he needed to let her on top. She stretched her long body on his, nibbling at his earlobes and feeling the shiver of his hands on her hips. With a gentle push at a space she had felt on a different body she asked,

"How does it work?"

"Hmm?" Edward asked, still blissing on her warmth and softness. Bella traced a hand down to his thigh, nervous and curious.

"You don't…" she blushed and buried her face in the crook of his neck, unable to move her hand any further, whispering, "is there nothing there?"

"Oh," Edward said. He gave a nervous laugh. Vampire biology. "It's the same as my hair," he explained in his low whisper, nuzzling his face to hers and trying to ignore the awkwardness of their conversation.

"Your hair?" Bella asked, running her fingers through the shiny mess.

"It grows by… well, I guess sheer force of will. Carlisle had gone absolutely insane for a whole week when he discovered that was how his nails, hair, and even erections worked. I once got to see the memory of it," she could hear Edward smile as he imitated Carlilse's light accent, "_It just doesn__'t make sense!_ He had shouted up and down his secluded English cottage. It's one of the only times I've ever seen him lose his temper."

"What?" Bella laughed in surprise. She had thought it was like Superman, that vampire hair could not be cut and that Edward had just been lucky enough to have a good style before he turned. Then she felt something and gave a gasp and giggle of surprise.

"That's you?" She asked mischievously.

"Just a little," Edward assured her, "I'm shy." Bella closed her eyes, letting her body find a position that felt right. A teenager groping in the dark.

"Do you feel anything?" She whispered, her heart racing. Edward gave a light groan and the two of them continued to explore.

They had had a bad fight earlier in the day, before Edward had spent his tea time with Charlie.

When Edward had come back it had felt to him like finding a lost talisman. It felt natural and right for him to be beside Bella at all times. But Edward could see that he slipped back into the role more easily than Bella, who was reluctant to admit how drastically her depression and subsequent rise from it had changed her. Sometimes, like this afternoon, her attempts at honesty felt more cruel than reconciling.

"We should talk about what I did with Jacob," she had said suddenly on the way home in the Volvo eight hours earlier.

"You don't have to explain," Edward had said, "Listen, I just got this amazing album called _Gulag Orkestar_, and you won't believe this kid's only nineteen," he pushed play on his sound system but Bella turned it off.

"Edward, we need to talk about it! He's your _enemy_, he _hates_ you. The fact that you are back means more of his tribe will change—"

"We can't know that, Bella," he assured her.

"Edward," she had returned, "don't do this again. Don't lock me out."

He pulled over the Volvo, running a hand through his hair. "What do you want me to say?" He'd seen Jacob's thoughts and memories in addition to Alice's. He had a nasty compartment of Jacob-Bella thoughts in his head and they played graphically whenever the darkness slipped over him. _The darkness_ were the moments where Edward stopped pretending to be human and enjoyed the cold cruelty of an unrelenting, vengeful vampire.

"Edward, when I kissed Jacob it meant more to him than it did to me. We can't pretend like I haven't betrayed him."

"You're opening a bad door here, Bella," Edward warned, "You forget that I can read Jacob's mind. That I did read his mind, that he was _all too ready_ to show me everything in there."

"What do you mean?" She asked.

"He was under the impression that you were willing to _marry_ him? That kiss was a promise, which is why he's so betrayed. Not to mention how I feel."

"Edward…"

"I just laugh it off, every time you shoot me down," he said with a cruel impression of the chuckle he'd give each time Bella refused to marry him, "but in my head I know you were eager to marry that… that _cur_!"

"I wasn't marrying him!" She responded defensively, "Why does everyone want me to decide about marriage? I'm only eighteen!"

"So you can plot your own death but marriage is too much!" He shouted.

"Stop it!" She yelled, "Why are we fighting?"

"Because we promised to be honest and you aren't holding up your end!" Edward returned. She stared at him as though she'd been slapped.

"What?" She asked, hurt.

"I forgive your dalliance," he said, "I understand that. I was the fool who left you and you tried to move on. It was a healthy attempt even with a mangy werewolf, _but now I__'m back_ so please stop rubbing my face in it! You won't admit that you still love him—"

"He's like a brother to me, of course I love—"

"You _kissed_ him, Bella! You _kissed him back. _It meant something to him and you _knew_ it, it meant you were a part of his freakish little meant you were going to havesexandchildrenand_ marriage_!" _All the things I cannot give you_, Edward thought to himself.

A horrible silence filled the car as soon as Edward's words hit the metal. He'd gone deeply into Jacob's brain that one time they'd been together. He'd skimmed through the memories, taken note of Bella's physical response to Jacob. He'd seen the whole wolf pack's shared memories. Sam telling Bella that she was the only one left for Jacob. Jacob saying she belonged with warriors. He'd seen the context of the kiss, the determination in Bella's eyes when she turned to Jacob. The silence filled the car, rising over Bella and Edward's heads to drown them.

"I apologize for my temper," Edward gave a mirthless laugh, "my girlfriend refuses to marry me and I just can't let it go." He mussed his hair and started the car again. "Bella, what do you want? What would be the perfect ending for you?"

She wiped at her face. A long time elapsed before her shaky voice came up with an answer.

"In a perfect world," she began, "I'd go on my runs with Jacob and be his friend, but I'd return to you every day. Maybe you'd even like each other and be friends. He'd find his own partner and you and I would live out a happy eternity."

"Until he died," Edward added. Bella flinched.

"He might not die," she said with a strange hopefulness to her voice, "if he keeps phasing he doesn't even age."

"You want two men in your life, Bella. Admit it," he sighed and shook the meanness out of his voice, trying to find a more soothing tone, "I won, I get that. You chose me, I believe you. But you still want him. _You cannot have him_. Until you realize that, it's probably best if we _don__'t_ talk about Jacob Black."

He drove back to her house where Charlie was waiting with grapefruit-infused tea.

* * *

The make-up make-outs were slow and sensual. Bella remembered Edward's promise, a promise of "not yet", but she knew that she wanted to savor each new step in their seduction. It wasn't like Jacob. She had been ready to swallow him whole and forget herself in the process. She wanted to be fully awake for Edward, and fully aware of his whole body. This was the only fluid communication she and Edward had now. When she was exploring Edward there was no looming future or ghostlike past, only the sighing present.

After what felt like hours of muffled groans and timorous experimentation they came back to playful banter.

"Why don't you grow your hair long if you can?" Bella asked, toying with a button on Edward's shirt. He covered his mouth as though stifling a yawn and scrunched his eyes. Then with a flourish he removed his hand to reveal a pencil-thin, red-gold mustache along the top of his lip. He squinted another eye as she giggled in glee and tried to grow the mustache out more, but her laughter broke his concentration and he accidentally developed a strong five-o-clock shadow.

The two of them giggled on the floor.

"What do I look like?" He asked, his white teeth shining.

"I like the scruff," she said, petting the side of his face, "But the mustache makes you look like Charlie!"

"I'll shave it _immediately_," he said in mock horror. "But perhaps I shall forget to shave the rest before school tomorrow?" Bella nodded, then she kissed him and jerked back as though statically shocked.

"It's prickly!" She said.

"Alice would call it _exfoliation_," he murmured, drawing her back into a kiss. "I want to meet Renee," he said after a few more kisses.

"My mom?" Bella asked. Edward had just dumped ice water all over her good vibes. "Why do you want to see her?"

"Well," Edward began slowly,"You'll never be able to see her after you turn, the change will be too obvious. And she's your mom, half your DNA, I'm curious. And," he added as though just remembering, "you still have those plane tickets you need to use..."

"And?" Bella asked, hearing a hesitation. A year ago Edward would have held back, kept Bella ignorant of his ulterior motives. But she waited patiently and he finally yielded.

"And," he continued, "there's a vampire in your near future who is looking hungry. Jasper has some friends visiting so it may be them, but Alice couldn't get a clear image. It's safer to take you away for a few days and avoid danger. I didn't want to worry you."

"There," Bella smiled, "don't you feel better for telling me?"

"Bella," he began warily.

"It's okay, I'll go. I understand. Who are Jasper's friends?"

"They're back from his war days. They swing by every so often to spend time with Alice and Jasper, but they aren't vegetarians. We can't promise your safety."

"Then why are they coming?"

Edward shook his head. "Later," he said, "ask me about it later." And then he silenced her with another kiss.


	2. Wonderfluff Times With Renee

Charlie had laughed when she'd asked, saying that Renee had to see it to believe it. He thought sending Edward south sounded like a nice joke to play on his ex-wife.

"Have her deal with the two of you for a few days!" He laughed again, "Finally get me some pity around here."

Riding in planes always made Bella nervous and itchy. She got into a big scary machine that made a lot of noise and claimed it could hang in the air without falling. As she boarded the plane to Florida she clutched the cold, firm hand of her lover. The last time she had been in a plane she was trying to prevent him from killing himself. That memory also did not calm her nerves.

"It's going to be fine, Bella," Edward said, blissfully oblivious to her true state of terror, "Your mom will love me. I'm charming."

"Ngghhuuuh…" she said.

Distantly, slipping behind other memories, Bella knew she had once flown for twenty straight hours without a single hiccup of airplane anxiety. The plane did not scare her then, she barely noticed that a few feet beneath her shoes was hyper-speed nothingness. She'd been too busy imagining the Volturi snapping Edward's neck. Alice had also been slipping her rum and cokes, and she'd arrived in Rome slightly hammered.

She turned her wide, brown eyes to the shiny specimen beside her and was contemplating asking him to pretend he was dying again, when the plane's taxi began to speed up. _Oh my god here we go_.

She swallowed and knocked around her jaw, trying to get her ears to adjust to the constantly changing altitude. Edward apparently noticed that her fears seemed particular to the machine shooting through space, and he decided to reassure her.

"If we crash," he began—which is not how any reassuring statement should ever begin, "I will shield you with my body and maneuver among the falling debris to slow our descent."

"Gurrgnnnuh?"

"I'll get you a ginger ale as soon as the flight attendants unbuckle themselves. Want to know how planes stay up?"

"Mmuuuhh…"

He took that as a _yes_. Carefully, and with many gesticulations of his lovely long fingers, Edward explained the concept of _lift_. He explained that it bothered most people to see a heavy object defying gravity, and while they understood that it was pushing against _something_ it was difficult to believe that a machine weighing hundreds of tons was levitating by pushing against air and molecules. But, he reminded Bella, she was smart. She believed in the power of science and truth. Together, using knowledge, they would conquer her fears.

"That's not okay," Bella said, shaking her head, "molecules aren't enough. I want ground. Ground keeps me up."

"But _ground_ is also just molecules," Edward said, "in truth, everything we know is full of holes and there are no solids. Oh, here's your ginger ale."

Then, using more intricate hand signals and handing her two cups of ginger ale, Edward explained the amazing properties of pressure. It was complicated and confusing, and soon Bella was feeling sleepy. With another comforting inhale of his clove-like breath, she fell asleep.

* * *

Sleeping, her brain recalled a conversation she'd had the day before in the school parking lot.

"What's it like?" She had asked, taking advantage of Edward's absence and Jasper's presence. Edward was stocking up on animal blood in order to keep himself presentable around Renee, Jasper was there to pick up Alice and give Bella a lift if she wanted it. "What's it like being a Newborn?" That's what they called the just-changed vampires for their first months of second-life. It reminded Bella of the born-again Christians. Much of the Cullen nature seemed cultish.

"Tell her, Jasper," Alice prompted. Bella knew that Jasper had been pissy ever since Edward had conquered his desire to snack on Bella. It had been a bond shared between brothers, this struggle of wills. He turned to Bella, leaning against her truck and blinking methodically, for Bella's sake.

"It's like being hopped-up on high-grade cocaine for months at a time," he said, looking around to make sure no one was listening. Then the story began to weave itself, taking over and relaxing him. "The venom binds with the body and makes a burst of energy. For awhile, you're at peak. You'll never hit that again, no matter how many humans you draw. I think it might have to do with the symmetry of the body and the monster." He propped his elbows behind him on the roof of her truck and for the first time in forever Bella saw his face relax.

His eyelids fell lazy and somnolent, a wry smile creeping into his features, "See, your body is the first taste you get of a human. It informs your lust from there-out. That's why we all crave differently. Maybe that's even why we get some fancy powers." He flexed his hands as though preparing to send the whole school into hysteria. Bella could never tell if Jasper purposefully slipped out an ether of attraction or whether it was just her. She never felt this discomfort with Emmett. Even though he sometimes frightened her, she could easily see why Alice loved Jasper, especially now. Bella felt like she'd never seen him before.

"Keep going," Alice insisted. Her voice was quiet, not sharing in the fun. It was overcast and drizzling, which was about normal but Jasper's smile had felt radiant and rare as the Forks' sun. He looked to his wife and partner, the smile dimming.

"Well," he thought, "You get wild. Crazy, really. You're just a screaming, insane baby with too much strength and no direction. Makes someone like me into a god. I used to corral them," there was a strange quality to Jasper's voice. It was a mixture of pride and disgust. It had been terrible work, but he had been very, very good at it.

"Newborns are weapons," he explained, "if you can use them. They're stronger than any other, faster, and they don't hesitate. If you are clever you can use that against them. And if you're me, you can harness them. But don't let one of 'em grab you, because you'll never break free, no matter who you are. The Volturi keep an eye out for Newborns, since they are volatile and can blow our cover easily. Some run feral, like my beauty girl right here," he turned a shining look to Alice that made Bella blush, as though she'd seen something indecent. "Alice turned out good. Some of the others don't. Most times if a vampire gets killed off it'll be in its infancy, when it's becoming an eye-sore to the Volturi."

"Infancy?" Bella asked, wondering if babies ever became vampires.

"Well, not literal infancy," Jasper amended, guessing her line of thought, "that is strictly prohibited. Children are the worst. Worse than Newborns. You know that feeling you get when you see something adorable? You get all stupid and weak and protective? Well, when there were real infants turned into Newborns, they had that kind of a look to them, but magnified. Drove you insane, really. Plus they had tantrums and fits, so a child could wipe out a city if it felt a little cranky. Any kids with extra powers would be nuclear weapons.

"No," he continued, "they all got killed off over time. Too dangerous. It's an unspoken rule never to turn a child now. They blow cover worse than adult Newborns. The Volturi will swoop down and wipe out anyone who turns infant humans, no question. But Newborn adults, well. They can be a nice little army. Not so cute, you know?"

"An army?" Bella asked, but Jasper turned to Alice and muttered in vampire-ese. After a short back and forth he turned back to Bella,

"Sorry, Bella. It's kind of an awful story, makes Alice upset. Maybe another time?"

"Sure," she'd agreed with disappointment, "I like hearing you talk. It's…different."

"Different than me wanting to kill you all the time?" He smiled, "Yeah, I prefer it, too. Maybe you could come back to _casa Cullen_ sometime. Talk to Charlie and see if he can let you out before menopause."

* * *

Edward was trying to pick out the thoughts of the pilots through the chaos of the crew. He tried not to think about the constant sunlight in Florida, about how difficult it would be hiding his vampire skin on the trip. He also didn't want to think this was the last time Bella would see her mother. Lately, Edward spent much of his time diving into other people's heads for distraction. The plane was descending and the change in air-pressure woke Bella up again. She'd slept through most of the flight.

"Thank you," she mumbled with a sleepy half-smile that made Edward feel at once weak and strong. He carried all the bags and followed Bella through the airport

Renee didn't seem to notice Edward's winter wardrobe. She was too shocked by her daughter.

"Oh my God, you are _gaunt_!" She shrieked, eying the 188-pound six foot girl. "What are you doing?" Renee asked in a mixed tone of wonder and worry. She gave Edward the impression that she was both disturbed by her daughter's weight-loss and intensely jealous.

"I do a lot of running and I eat better," Bella said shyly. The kids at school sometimes asked about it, too, as if her body were public property. There would probably be more questions about her weight-loss if it weren't for the general assumption that she'd had a failed pregnancy. Now that Edward prowled the halls, most of the rumors had gone underground. He could be scary when he needed to. Renee scurried her daughter and the pale boy back to the apartment, apologizing that Phil was away.

"Bella, you want white or red?"

"Mom, I'm not even nineteen yet," Bella laughed nervously as her mother sloshed box wine into brightly colored tumblers with ice. Renee hopped around the sunny apartment in short-shorts and a floppy straw hat, playing loud eighties music and insisting on having a "party" to welcome her daughter home. Edward was forced to lurk in the few patches of shadow available to him. He had told her that he'd make his presence known after twilight.

"Oh, come on, sweetie! If this were Europe you'd have a wine palate by now. I'll make you a spritzer with lime, that's not so strong." Her mother fixed her a light drink and forced her out on the patio to talk about boys. Renee giggled and made a show of her tanned legs, kicking them in the air and rubbing extra lotion on them whenever Edward ghosted by.

"Honestly, why doesn't that boy join us?"

"He has a skin condition, Mom. He's like, allergic to the sun."

"Why did he _come?_ This is _Florida_! We're the sunshine state, baby!" Renee's level of horror was the same as if she had learned that her daughter was dating a century-old blood-drinking soulless creepster.

"He wanted to meet you," Bella said, still feeling nervous around her own mother, "we're pretty serious." She added.

"Oh, well I can _see_ that, honey." Renee peeped over her extra-large sunglasses to see if Edward was slouching in a corner somewhere. He seemed to have disappeared so she leaned conspiratorially over her wine and asked, "What does he do when you cry?"

"What?" Bella asked, confused by this new line of questioning.

"What does he do, honey? When you cry in front of him?"

Bella thought about this. Once he tasted her tears, curious about them. Edward seemed saddened whenever she cried, because he could not share in the catharsis with her. She wondered what he would be like if he were human. She thought about his brows knitting together and the way his shoulders would shake.

"He cries when I cry," Bella finally answered. Renee covered her mouth as though she had heard a dark secret. Then she resolutely set down her glass and fluttered over to her daughter, wrapping the sizeable teenager in her arms and rocking her.

"Baby, baby, baby. He's a keeper. Keep that boy," she whispered while holding Bella.

As soon as the sun set Edward was on the patio refilling Renee's glass and flashing his white teeth. She was immediately infatuated and loved that he knew all the words to her favorite songs. He told Bella that he had sat alone in the sun room for hours, secretly shimmering and absorbing as much light as possible to warm himself up. Before the night could chill his adamantine body, Edward asked Renee to a dance. He even donned his favorite pair of Ray Bans for the "Sunglasses at Night" song.

"Keep him!" Renee stage whispered so loudly that the neighbors probably heard her. Renee treated men like fish, and she had apparently decided Bella could feast on this catch for a few years before moving on. Bella caught herself laughing, clapping along to music and watching Edward pop his collar and shimmy alongside Renee to the synth music. He really was charming.

"That was very smart of you," she murmured later as they lay in bed together. Renee insisted on letting them share the same room, saying it would be "draconian" to keep the lovers apart. "Wine and dancing? Mom will want to marry you if Phil ever leaves," Bella smiled.

"It wins most people over. Besides, Corey Heart is one of my favorites." He grinned and Bella shoved him playfully. He pretended to be shoved.

Bella nuzzled herself alongside Edward, running a hand down his thigh, "You look worried," she purred, feeling predatory and sensual, "I can calm you down-"

"Bella, don't." He removed her searching hand. "I can't. I really, really can't and you have to respect that."

"Okay, but _why_?" She asked, exasperated, "Is it moral? Tell me."

"It's... Biological."

"Oh," Bella said, biting her lip, "uh, but I thought you said... You seemed to enjoy..."

"I do!" He corrected, "That's not the issue. I can feel just fine and I work the same as humans, mostly... It's just vampires... We..." He let out a sigh and smooshed his face, "I can't say these things, Bella. I can't. We shouldn't be talking about this."

"Who are you going to tell if it isn't me?" She asked, rising up on one elbow. Edward wished alcohol had some effect on vampires. He needed a steadying drink and Renee didn't seem to keep careful track of her box wine.

"Okay," he sat up, putting some distance between them and avoiding her face, "okay. Uh, maybe you should put your shirt back on." She sighed peevishly, pulling a t-shirt over her little bra.

"C'mon," she said, stretching lazily along the bed, "spit it out."

"Are you sure you—"

"Yes. Go." She wouldn't let him wriggle out of this.

"The vampire mating ritual is violent. Very... Very violent. Bella you wouldn't survive."

"Ritual?" She asked. He hesitated again and Bella had had enough. She'd kept a good sense of humor about this but finally she snapped, "Edward you want to marry me but you can't talk about sex? Get over it and talk!"

"Fine!" He burst out before pausing and listening for Renee. "She's asleep," he told Bella, lowering his voice anyway. "Fine. It's just that most of my knowledge comes from other people's sex lives. It's their privacy."

"It's _our_ relationship," she added. He sighed, "I hate this honesty bilge," he muttered. "There is a lot of biting. We get an immediate and unparalleled thrill from biting and being bitten. Scars are especially attractive on vampires, since it means they have either survived battles or multiple lovers. Then there is the issue of my body weight and strength. I could, I might... shatter...something." He cringed.

"You have to do this? To get off?"

Edward looked disgusted by the phrase.

"I don't know if I have to, but no other vampire has ever _not_ bitten during sex. The women in Denali needed a male harem, since they were accidentally turning their human lovers."

"So human lovers have been-"

"Bella, no vampire ever makes love with a human twice. They are either dead or turned by the end of it."

He rested his head in his hands. "I can't..." She could tell he hated this, he hated talking about sex. "Bella, I would rather die the showy, dazzling deaths of movie vampires than say this to you, but I'm trying to be honest." He took a fake breath, "I can't climax without killing you. So I've decided I don't need to."

"For the love of God, Edward!" Bella cried, "How can you still be against turning me?"

"Alice is trying to find a work-around," he said, not responding to her anger, "Rosalie and Emmett think it's hilarious and I just can't ask Carlisle," he shuddered, "but Alice... Well she's eager to help."

"Alice?" Bella asked, her throat going dry. She suddenly realized she had never asked about Edward's sexual history. Alice wasn't actually related to him, wasn't his _real_ sister.

"_Jasper_ and Alice, the _married_ couple!" He hissed, keeping his voice low, "For God's sake, Bella, I'm not a deviant!" Bella was always surprised how little she knew of Edward. She'd never asked Edward about his romantic history because she had assumed he was like her and didn't have one.

"Edward," she began, feeling some of the choking shame that surrounds talk of sex, "are you a virgin?"

There was a pause before he answered, and Bella wondered why she felt hurt by it, why it should matter.

"It's complicated," he murmured. She couldn't cry, she had to be strong, they had to keep going.

"Try me," she said.

"I don't have any scars," he said, "so yes, I'm a virgin in the vampire world."

"But before?" She thought he'd never been in love as a human, too preoccupied with dreams of being a soldier and then the flu epidemic. That was nearly a hundred years ago, and yet she felt a little sad, a little disappointed.

"It was a different time then, Bella. Women were expected to be chaste and it was up to husbands to be the teacher. So... We had to get some training. For manhood." She waited for him to continue. He couldn't meet her eye. She watched the little war going on inside Edward. The first half of their relationship had been him calling the shots, deciding how much she could know. They were both aware of how well that turned out. He continued on,

"When I turned fifteen my friends took me to a brothel. It was a couple years after the Everleigh sisters were shut down, and Chicago's golden age of prostitution was over, but prohibition hadn't kicked in yet. We found a place where we became regulars, drank and had a good time." He looked at her with such a hopeless expression, absolutely unable to explain himself adequately, "It was like a sport. Like something we just did together. Drinking and visiting the women. Honestly, I'd forgotten it all until recently. When you awaken feelings in me, the memories come back."

"Why didn't you-"

"Since then?" He finished her thought for her. With a heavy sigh he examined his long life. "I was disgusted by Rosalie, but I probably would have taken her if she let me. Rosalie... She couldn't let any man touch her until Emmett. Carlisle didn't know that when he turned her, didn't know that a mate was the last thing she wanted. I let Rosalie be, but we didn't associate with other vampires so I just remained celibate.

"When I ran away I had no reservations but I was so focused on my self-righteous task that I just... Never tried. By the time I came home, I started re-examining my ethics. It got to where I'd been without a woman for so long that it became," he searched for words, "sacred. It was my last initiation and I decided it had to be particular, especially as I watched Rosalie find Emmett and then when Alice and Jasper bounced into our lives." He shook his head at secret images. "Ninety years of history," he sighed, "How can I ever explain it all?"

Bella reached for him, "You're doing fine," she said. She drew him into a kiss to let him know she wasn't hurt, though she was, and that she still wanted him, which she did. She made a note to talk to Alice the next time they were alone.

* * *

_**Flash forward to The Next Time She and Alice Are Alone**_

"Alice?"

"Hmm?" The vampire responded absently, concentrating on teaching Bella's hair to remain in a side-part. Alice liked the side-swept bangs at school and wondered if Bella could manage the look. So far it wasn't working.

"Edward told me that you and Jasper are trying to find a work-around."

"A what?" She asked, dropping Bella's hair.

"If we ever... If we ever want to make love while I'm human." _Oh my god, so many hard words to say._

Alice shrugged, "Yeah, we're looking but it's stupid. Jasper keeps breaking his bindings." Bella snorted and then coughed, choking on too much information.

"It's great fun for us, but you'd just get smashed to itty bitty pieces. And I'm sick of being the Bella. I tried to get Jasper to take the role when Charlotte and Peter visited but he was too bitchy. I told him it was a wasted experiment, though of course _I_ wouldn't give up Peter biting me."

"Uh, Alice, I don't need to know-" But Alice was on a roll, braiding Bella's hair and happily chirping about her sex life.

"Edward obviously has better control than any of us, but we've got to figure out how to stop him from biting, stop him for crushing your pelvis to powder, and _still_ give him a happy ending." Alice laughed to herself like it was a funny riddle. "Obviously he can't be on top, so missionary is _out_, as is fellatio—that would go horribly awry, I can just imagine!" Alice made a strangled gagging noise. _I shouldn__'t have asked_, Bella thought grimly to herself.

"The ball gag was okay, but it gets kind of gross and nobbly half-way through, and we just don't have the patience for replacements. Big ol' soup bones seem to be working decently, though. We picked some up at the butcher, and I mean sure he snaps them in two and maybe chokes on the shards a bit, but the texture reminds him to gnaw, you know? I like that solution so much, I think it's very clever."

"Is it... Nice?" Bella asked timidly, wondering if the wild fantasies in her head and the cravings in her body we realistic.

"Bella, it's _sex_. It's not nice it's _fantastic_! There's the playful kind with all the jumping and snarling, especially when Peter visits," she murmured to herself, "But then there's the stuff that's just me and Jasper. After we fight or when he gets his romance dial turned to eleven. Just the kind of stuff that makes you wish you could cry." Alice seemed to suddenly remember Bella was a virgin and that Jacob had once been pretty liberal with his physical favors.

"Uh, but it's not like that with everyone," she backpedaled, "I mean, Rosalie's fiance... Well you know. She thought he was an okay guy, and she was dead wrong." She gave a totally inappropriate laugh, "It has to be someone you trust. Edward, if he could, would be that guy. I wouldn't trust anyone else for you."

"Alice, I want to turn. You know that. But I was hoping to wait a few _years_... I... I..."

"You're too horny to wait that long," Alice said sagely. "Jasper thinks it's a hoot and I tell him to help out a little but he's so scared of you," she sighed. Bella didn't want to imagine Alice and Jasper talking about Bella's hormones. "_Just throw some metaphysical cold water on her_, I say, but noooo, he says that would be _presumptuous_."

"Ahem," Bella tried to tactfully return Alice to the subject at hand.

"Right," Alice remembered, "Well, we can change you this summer, sometime after you graduate. Can you wait that long?" _NO_, Bella thought to herself. Instead she said, "But I'll be a newborn. When Jasper talks about the newborns they don't sound... Human. I won't be me."

"You'll be a tiger, though," Alice said cheerily, "Rawr! Edward can take it, and we can post guard if-"

"I don't want him to have to 'take it'!" Bella shouted, whirling on Alice, "I want to share it."

"Oh, honey," Alice said, her caramel eyes softening. It was a hopeless endeavor, really. She pulled Bella into an embrace, "It's okay," she lied, "It'll work out."

* * *

_**Rewind back to Jacksonville**_

"Wakey-wakey!" Came the shrill, high-pitched voice of the woman Bella had lived with until she was sixteen. It was eight in the morning and Renee had already been up for two hours. "Eddie, I got you a hat while I was on my morning walkies! We could bring an umbrella if that will protect you from the sun? I wanted to show Bellsy my favorite breakfast nook!"

Renee produced a thin, feminine cowboy hat. It was the sort that would make Jasper vomit but Edward gave a wide smile and ruffled his hair, mumbling a shy aw-shucks-style thank you. Bella found him poking around her suitcase when she returned from her shower.

"What are you doing?" She asked in alarm. He held up one of her plaid shirts.

"I was hoping I could borrow this," he said, "my dress shirts clash with the hat." And so the three of them walked to Renee's favorite diner, with Edward wearing one of Bella's shirts, a girl's cowboy hat, and holding an umbrella over his shoulder like a parasol. These were the sorts of memories Bella hoped she could keep after the venom infiltrated her system, an event that felt years away.

"And later this evening," Renee was saying as she stood between Edward and Bella on the sidewalk, "there's an Eastertide service one of my friends is singing at. I know you don't like churching that much, but it's so musical, like a concert, really. Is that okay with you, Edward?"

"My adoptive father was training to be a priest when he was my age," Edward explained, "I have no problems with church." But Bella frowned,

"What's _Eastertide_?" She asked. The bunnies and chocolate festival had been weeks ago.

"Oh, I don't know," Renee giggled, "but it's supposed to be meditative. They're doing some kind of French singing thing and my friend is bringing along her didgeridoo!"

That evening Edward put his oxford shirt back on with a pair of slacks, explaining that the cowboy hat wouldn't do right in a church, even a one with a didgeridoo. Renee had pinched Edward's arm affectionately after breakfast and mistook the resistance for muscle tone, since then she'd been trying to find a way to pinch or squeeze his arms all day. Bella made sure to keep herself between the squealing thirty-eight-year-old and Edward.

That evening at the church the chants were monotonous and almost nonsensical, weaving tones with words that quickly lost their meaning or were in Latin. Bella turned to her left, where her mother sat grinning and giving a thumbs-up to her swarthy Celtic friend. When she looked at Edward, though, her boredom disappeared. He was rapt, his jaw set and eyebrows like electric wires making a connection. The way Edward experienced music always affected her, forcing her to turn a song on its head and poke at the underbelly, find the seams left by the artist. She reached out a hand to hold Edward's and he instinctively squeezed, letting out a ragged sigh. He looked like he was going to cry.

Bella turned back to the altar and filtered the music through Edward's lens. She imagined what he was thinking, imagined how this music must feel to someone like him, someone who believed in souls and yet felt condemned. It wasn't boring at all, and the monotony lent itself to contemplation. She found the music swelling her upward and then letting her drift down again, rolling in the waves. Before she knew what was happening a thick tear fell down her cheek. Edward leaned his head lightly against hers, turning his face just enough to kiss at the stain on her cheek. He murmured,

"I haven't been in a church in seventy years."

"Oh, sugar that was so much fun!" Renee squealed as she dropped the two of them off at the airport the next day. "He's a real gentlemen, and I think you're good for him," she said.

"What do you mean?" Bella asked, taken aback.

"Well," Renee whispered while Edward unloaded the trunk, "sometimes I see him looking at you, and he just seems kind of lost. Then you turn around I swear that boy just lights up and about sparkles. He'd probably be pretty lonely if he didn't have you around, he seems so shy unless you're in the room." She kissed her daughter on the cheek, "And he's doing you such good, too! I've never seen you prettier or healthier! And you aren't as serious as you used to be, you're actually acting your age ten percent of the time."

"Thanks, Mom," Bella blushed.

"Oh and can you apologize about the wine thing? I forgot he's a teetotaller. Charlie told me that he's in a program,"

"He what!" Bella should have known Charlie would do that, but Renee didn't seem worried.

"Oh, Bella, it's great that he's getting help. Some of my best friends came out of AA. I just feel like such a schmuck for trying to ply him with _vino_! Poor kid. But he said 'No' every time," she gave Bella a smile like this was the sign of a Messiah. She was gaga. Still, Bella got the feeling that her mother would be proud Bella kept turning Edward's proposals down. He had stopped the playful attempts weeks ago.

They kissed again, waved goodbye, and Bella wondered how many more times she would see her mother before Edward stopped Bella's heart.

If Edward hadn't been driving the Aston Martin, he might have just hit him. They weren't going top speed, which in this beautiful machine was over 300 km/h (180.9 mph in imperial units). He could probably slow down enough that even with the minimal safety features Bella wouldn't be hurt. Surely the wolf wouldn't threaten the Vanquish, Edward told himself. He'd seen Jacob's memories, their shared reverence for vehicles, it was the last iota of respect Edward carried for the monster-boy.

But when Jacob Black planted himself in the road on their way home, Edward swerved the car and came to a swearing halt.

"Jacob." He hissed with great loathing. The boy was already opening Bella's door and trying to pull her out of the car.

"Hey!" She yelled, still buckled in. She kicked out a leg and grabbed the collar of Jake's shirt to bang his head against the car. Edward winced, hearing the metal give. That would badly affect the aerodynamics. This had to stop. He unbuckled his seat belt and got out of the car, quickly tossing the wolf-boy as far from Bella and his baby as possible.

"My two favorite things in the world and he manages to hurt them both," he sighed apologetically, helping Bella out and asking if she was hurt. Jacob was already back,

"Where'd you take her, you pedophile?"

"She's legally older than me, Jacob Black. And I'll remind you that you were once jail bait to her." He turned to Bella who was insisting that her arm felt fine, "He thinks I stole you away to change you. The treaty is still valid." Bella's vampirism was an inevitable bump in her future but she and Edward continued to avoid conversation of the date. Bella hadn't talked to Alice yet, and was still telling herself she had time.

"Just barely," Jacob seethed, referring to the treaty, "your oafish brother scared away the redhead when we had a clear shot _and_ he muddied our borders!"

"What?" Bella asked. Edward was picking through Jacob's thoughts, grabbing the network of memories that spread through the whole wolf pack. Bella snapped her fingers angrily, "Over here, guys. What's going on? I'm the only one without any telepathy."

"Victoria came back," Jacob began.

"Both our families gave chase, but without clear boundaries—"

"The river marks the boundaries!" Jacob protested.

"She's using the arbitrary lines against us!" Edward returned.

"Hey!" Bella shouted again, squeezing herself between the two of them, "I'm neutral-land here, okay? International waters."

"International waters? Bella, that means you've added pirates to your bizarre circle of friends. What's next, ninjas?" Edward was at least trying to keep a good humor about the situation. The sun in Florida seemed to have lodged inside him.

"I think she meant Switzerland," Jacob slit his eyes at Edward, "I see your boyfriend enjoys cracking jokes at your expense, Bella. Such a catch."

"Stop!" She shouted. "For God's sake get a room, you two!" She sighed. "Edward? Can you give us a minute?" Jacob smirked as though he'd won something and Edward took two reluctant steps backwards. Bella whirled on Jacob,

"I'm asking him to back off because I know he's reasonable and _he__'ll_ listen to me, so don't act like I like you any better, Jacob Black."

"_He__'s_ reasonable!" Jacob sputtered, but Bella held up a hand.

"Tell me about Victoria," she demanded. Edward kind of liked watching Bella talk down to someone six inches taller than her.

"She's still gunning for you," Jacob said, warily eying Edward who was checking the damage Jacob's face had made to the 0.33 drag coefficient, "she dances our defenses and is playing us against each other. We were _made_ to kill vampires, it's our physiology. The Cullens should give us temporary reign over the whole area until she's killed." Edward made a sound like he was going to start fighting with Jacob again but Bella talked over him,

"Can the two of you work jointly? If you team up, even for a brief truce, maybe you can get this chick out of the way and I can get on with my life?"

"Suddenly not the biggest fan of vampires, huh, Bella?" Jacob asked, cocking his chin up and rolling back his brawny shoulders. Edward watched Bella swallow down a smarmy comment and shake her head. Edward saw a shift in the way her body was positioned to Jacob's, it moved from defensive to vulnerable.

"Jake," she began, "let me back in." He saw how easily she disarmed Jacob, his puffed-up chest briefly deflating. There was an awful, undeniable chemistry between the two of them and it rooted Edward to the spot, no longer caring about the Vanquish.

"You made your move," he said in a quieter voice, "I promised to protect you while your heart still beats. I keep my promises, Bella."

"I didn't promise…"

"Don't. Don't do this, Bella. I can't take it."

"Please Jake," she begged, "let me back in."

He turned to Edward, unable to look at her. "I'm not the alpha, but I'll talk to Sam. Once the redhead is out of business all bets are off."

"Your metaphors don't even make sense," Edward said briskly, stepping forward to collect Bella. This was the creature Bella had been ready to pair up with. It hurt how very different Jacob was from Edward, how stupid and mundane the boy was and how she seemed to prefer that. Jacob turned back into the woods and jogged away. "I'm sorry Bella," Edward tapped lightly on the big dent in the roof, "he's thick-headed."

They got back into the car and began to drive.

"You handled him well," Bella began.

"We're not talking about him, remember?" Edward said in a sharper voice than he meant.

"I was just—"

"I can smile in that bastard's face all day but I'm not supposed to lie to you anymore so I'll be clear: we aren't talking about him."

"He's on your side," she began.

"Out of the three of us, it seems like he's the _only_ one on my side," Edward rumbled.

"What do you—" Her words broke off as Edward veered the car to a halt and whirled on Bella,

"You're trying to kill yourself! Everything you do is another step toward your own suicide! How am I supposed to sit by and watch—"

"I'm not trying to kill myself, I'm stopping _you_ from killing yourself!" She yelled.

"It shouldn't matter to you what I do when you are _dead_!" He shouted back.

"Well it fucking does!" She screamed. Edward squeezed his eyes shut and let out a roar of anger.

"I can't do this!" He yelled, "Someone else is driving you home!" They were closer to the Cullen house than her own and Edward drove at top speed, even though he knew it scared Bella. Or maybe because he knew it would scare her. By luck or chance or grace they made it safely to the vampire mansion and Edward burst from the car, abandoning Bella as she began to cry.

* * *

Edward stalked into his father's office, glad to see Carlisle had the evening off. He carefully collapsed into a horsehair-stuffed seat, always aware that his full weight would break the artifact.

"I can't do this, _baba_," he moaned, covering his face. "We fight all the time now. Fight, fight, fight. I catch myself yelling. Screaming. At _Bella_."

* * *

Jasper opened the passenger door to the Aston and Bella felt a gentle calm soothe her nerves.

"Alice said I should give you a ride home," he said apologetically. "We'll take Carlisle's car." Bella nodded, following and wiping at her tears. She didn't want to be a wreck in front of Jasper, he was too sensitive.

"You're looking like you again," Bella noted, when she finally cleared her throat enough to sound normal. Jasper loaded her bags in the back and she sat in Carlisle's car, feeling raw and hurt by Edward.

"I'm like a spider," Jasper shrugged, starting the engine, "most of the time you're just freaking me out, too. And with this whole feedback loop it's a never-ending hell, really. But when you relax, I relax. Easy, right?" Bella nodded, she had forgotten that most humans were startled by Jasper, who was in turned startled by them. It was like talking to a mirror.

* * *

"You aren't asking me if you love her," Carlisle said in his office to Edward, knowing his son too well, "you are asking whether _this_ is love?" Edward shook his head, still draped over the chair as though his bones had dissolved. He was telepathic, he had seen into enough heads over a short century to have an array of answers always at the ready. He did not want answers from Carlisle, he wanted counsel.

"No, Carlisle," he said, returning to their more formal language, "I just… I can't see. I can't see beyond this." His father always insisted that he himself had no particular skills, implying that a vampire working daily around warm human blood was simply a matter of restraint. Carlisle did not see how closely he and his sons were linked. The family had remarked quickly on the funny coincidence of Edward and Jasper, that they were like halves of a coin. But Carlisle was unremarkable because he did not fall to either extreme of sympathy or empathy. His was a non-invasive understanding. Carlisle's talent was compassion.

"I think you need help articulating the problems," Carlisle said, "and then working through them. That is why we have a family, is it not? Certainly it isn't for procreation." Edward finally met his father's smile. It was alarming, how young Carlisle could look when he smiled. It made Edward wonder if they might have been friends, peers even, had things gone differently. But of course, had Carlisle never been a vampire none of this life would be possible.

* * *

"I want to hear more about the armies," Bella said, wanting distraction from the sudden fight. She loved stories and had actually enjoyed some of her time grounded in her room since it gave her the space to catch up on reading.

"It upsets Alice to hear it," he said, "Then that upsets me and, well you know the drill. Edward doesn't want you to know, either. But I can make my own decisions. I think you should know." He rolled up the shirtsleeve on his right arm, letting it catch the random streaks of light.

"Can you see any of this?" He asked, moving his forearm and turning it slightly. Bella looked closely and noticed something about Jasper's skin that was different from Edward's. It had a faint lace-pattern to it, as though there were baroque designs lightly drawn along the skin. She smiled, remembering the _grottesche_ and about to ask if it was a tattoo until she remembered that tattoos didn't stick.

"They're bites," he said. "Hundreds of them. And the only ones that leave scars are from other vampires." Bella remembered what Edward had said about the bites being appealing to other vampires.

"Some bites aren't so bad," he continued, driving slowly along a meandering route, "they just happen. Casualty of the species. But these," he turned his arm in the sun again. The patterns were too hard to see, but Bella could tell they refracted the light differently, "these are battle scars. I've got 'em everywhere. I used to train Newborns, form whole armies with them. Sometimes they got the better of me, but I always won."

There was a sinking sensation in Bella's stomach as she listened. She'd been eager to meet Jasper as an individual and break apart some of the awkward space they shared, but as he spoke she realized maybe his stories would be scary. Maybe there was a good reason why Edward didn't want her to hear them, why Alice got upset around them.

* * *

Edward chewed on his thoughts while his father paced the office. They'd gone the whole weekend without fighting and even had a decently honest conversation. But as soon as Jacob Black threw himself in front of the Aston Edward had felt his cold body smolder with rage. Even now, thinking about that wolf, he felt an uncontrollable hatred. Envy, disgust, a supercilious sneer, a cowardly shiver. Edward could see the smear-marks Jacob had left on Bella and it enraged him to the point of screaming at her, for she protected those marks and kept them pristine. She had assumed Jacob into her identity, she was now a grotesque amalgam of wolf, vampire and human.

Carlisle looked at the young boy's contorted face and sat across from him, his face full of pity. He softened the blow with a smile,

"Look at what she does to you," he said, "Five years ago there was nothing that could make you this upset. Your distress is a blessing, Edward."

"Alice said she would make us suffer," Edward said, remembering back to his sister's bittersweet prophecy. "I thought I could stand it," he muttered from the horsehair chair, thinking back to his revelation in Rome, "I thought I wasn't afraid of pain, that I was so strong. But I now see that I am terrified, _baba._" He ran his fingers through his hair, speaking aloud, baring his weaknesses to his father, "I'm more scared than ever now. She hurts me so deeply and I lash out, hurting her back. I can feel myself covering those wounds, and I can't look at them."

"May I be so presumptuous as to examine those wounds myself?" Carlisle asked. Who could say no to a doctor of medicine? Carlisle stood, stretching out his legs and admiring the new layout of his office. Esme had hidden the shelving so that books floated on each other along the walls, parting only to let sun in through the windows. He loved her so much, and that love was the only thing that ever made Carlisle dangerous.

* * *

"In 1863 I was the youngest major in Texas," Jasper said, his voice dropping deeper into his old Texan accent, "I met some stranded women, they unhorsed me and turned me. One of them, Maria, she seemed to see something in me. She had an eye for things, made her real dangerous. At that time there weren't just the American Civil wars going on, but some battles for territory among vampires. Maria was a key player and she picked her soldiers well. I became one of them, amassing and commanding fleets of Newborns to do her bidding." He swallowed, looking briefly to Bella before he continued. She was quiet, her eyes distant. She was imagining Jasper in an army.

"She controlled me because I thought I loved her," he said, "I was just a kid, you know? I didn't know one thing from another. I was a Newborn myself, but she knew something that not many do. Newborns run raw, and you can control them with fear or you can control them with _lust_. She could make just about anyone fall for her if she tried it, and Newborns are dumb as tar. I fell for it, and even when I grew up and snapped out of it some, I still followed her around." He sighed, taking a wrong turn that would give them another few minutes for the story.

"Emmett likes to say my powers have me pussy-whipped, and maybe they do. But he also knows that I had to kill hundreds of Newborns. Maria was in charge of the humans, she had the drive and the determination to stop short of killing. I was in charge of dispatching 'em once they were spent or too risky. I tried to be stealthy, but every single one of them knew what was happening when I finally got them."

Jasper ran a hand through his wiry hair, the gold in his irises giving him a warmth that belied his cold-hearted story.

"Edward told you about his revelation, huh?" Jasper asked, "How he stopped killing those criminals when he could see the truth? He's a good man, Bella. Even when I hate him I love him, and you bring out his best side." He shook his head, "But me? Well I only came to my senses by sheer quantity of kills. They build up when your memory is so pristine. Weighed on me," he traced his fingers along his face, arms, hands, chest, "every last one. I've died a thousand times. Two thousand times." He shook his head, unable to count.

"Me and Edward share a lot, you know? He's got the sympathy I've got the empathy, but it has the same toll. Until you came along, vampires worked on a sort of auto-pilot, just reacting to the stuff around them. I built up enough murder and memories that I finally hit self-destruct and set off on my own. Fell into a depression that wouldn't lift for decades. I can't tell you about that, though."

"I won't ask you to," Bella said softly. She hadn't realized how open Jasper would be.

"I ducked into a diner one night while I was wandering Philadelphia, and there sat this heart-faced darling. She was just smart as a whip and sassy as hell. She about bit my head off for making her wait so long," a pale smile lined his face and Bella abruptly found herself wondering what Jasper would look like if he were allowed to age.

* * *

"The wounds seem fairly obvious," his father began, letting thoughts of his own affairs drop into the background, "first, there is Jacob, the one I called _Israel_ back in Ithaca. You didn't find that very funny then."

"I still don't think it's funny," Edward grumbled.

"Yes, well, you and I have a different sense of humor. Jacob the usurper. You're still afraid Bella will change her mind and choose him. You have every reason to hate him—"

"He's a filthy cur, a mongrel beast," Edward began to spit but Carlisle cut him off.

"Now that's not like you, Edward. You stopped killing rapists because they were too human. Surely you have room for a werewolf who loves your Bella." Edward kept his eyes averted and Carlisle continued, "You are alike," he smiled. A fire kindled in Edward and he felt his hair raise.

"We are nothing alike," he whispered.

"Thou art obstinate," Carlisle quoted, "and thy neck is iron sinew, and thy brow brass."

"No theology here, Carlisle." Edward growled. He didn't want to like Jacob, he didn't want to think how they were similar.

"This is exactly the place for theology, Edward. It has not escaped my notice that you and Jacob share many things."

"If this is a vulgar joke about Bella then I'm leaving," Edward stood angrily. Carlisle was hurt. They both knew that wasn't what he was saying, that Carlisle would never be so crude.

"Edward, my son… I know you are angry. Ever since the family meeting where we decided to go against your wishes—"

"You decided, Carlisle," Edward said. Carlisle tried to keep an idea of the family as a democratic unit, but it was a patriarchy through and through. Edward turned on his heel and stormed away, violent and roiling. He was out of the house in a flash and already running, blurring through the trees and dodging branches and animals.

He would run as far as he had to in order to get Carlisle's words out of his head. He did his best to ignore the fact that running in the woods was exactly how Jacob had wormed his way into Bella's heart.

* * *

"What do you mean, until I showed up?" Bella asked. They had arrived at her house and Jasper was parking alongside the Sheriff-mobile.

"Didn't Edward tell you this?" Jasper asked, killing the engine. Bella gave a helpless shrug.

"Maybe he did," Jasper guessed, "just in different words. We don't change, Bella. We're natural wanderers because the only way we change at all is from a stimulus that we gotta go looking for. Vampires just react to their surroundings, or they _did_. Me and Alice got in on this gig with Carlisle, and it was boring as all hell but at least the nightmares stopped. It's just rote motion, going through the days and existing.

"Then you come around and suddenly we've got opinions, suddenly we're fighting each other over something besides food and territory. You're breaking hearts we didn't know we had. Look at me, Bella. I'm talking to a human being. Talking like you were an equal.

"Now that's not what I mean," he quickly corrected himself, "I don't mean to be rude, but most of the time I can't help but see you as a tasty dish. It's hard to take you seriously, treat you like a… well like a family member. But I'm doing it. Things are changing around here."

"Bella?" Charlie called suspiciously from the front porch, "You home? Who's that with you?" Charlie recognized the car but not the driver. His face said, _This girl is going to give me an early death_. Bella wondered if a part of her father had believed that she would never return from Florida and just disappear with that Cullen boy.

"Do you want to meet my father?" Bella asked apologetically.

"Well," Jasper drawled to himself, "all right."

Carlisle sat in his office staring at the empty chair. A tiny hole had punctured his family and now Bella Swan was rupturing their reality. He gave a world-weary sigh and muttered to himself,

"For I have come to set man at variance against his father."

- 29 -


	3. Love is Letting Go

**Part the second**

_**Author**__**'s Note: **__Sorry for the long delay but I was wrapped up in NaNoWriMo and successfully won! That's 50,000 words in 30 days! Now back to your regularly scheduled fanfic._

* * *

Jacob sat on the edge of his bed, a chair propped against the door in case his father got curious. She had looked great, and it hurt him. He rubbed his forehead where nothing hurt and there were no marks, thinking of her quick reflexes and how she easily retained his instruction. He'd been rough with her, furious at the idea that she had been changed, too angry to think or stop and notice her smell beside the icy reek of Edward. He'd deserved getting his head smashed into a car, though he felt a pang of pity to think of the Aston being hurt.

_Bella_.

She'd smelled like warmth and sunscreen, the opposite of vampires. He had heard her heart continuing its pulses in that unceasing song, he saw the light perspiration beading at her forehead when she got angry. _Let me in_, she'd asked. He knew that if he ignored the muttering cold one in the periphery of his vision, that Bella would have looked perfect. She was almost rosy from the Florida sun. She'd been wearing a flimsy shirt over a tank top and he could recall her stark collar bones and the soft rounded shoulders. Those had been jewels once promised to him.

She had called Edward the reasonable one, and her brown eyes were vivid and cutting. _Bella_. She was alive, and she missed him.

He knew that if he went back to the pack they'd find a way to remind him that she was gone, they'd convince him to stay away. But right now, without their influence or his father's "advice" he could think for himself. And Bella was still alive, she was still Bella. He was wasting time, holding this grudge. He was doing Bella no favors by staying angry. It was likely that Victoria wouldn't come back tonight and Jacob couldn't risk turning back into a wolf. He couldn't risk losing his resolve.

* * *

Edward didn't drive Bella to school the next morning, but he was nevertheless sitting in home room with her. A thousand miles away, not meeting her eye. She whispered, as if to herself, words that she knew only he could hear.

"Are you okay?"

She watched him wipe a hand across his face and shake his head, _No_.

"I'm so sorry," she whispered, "I don't know what to do." He turned around to meet her eye and gave her a sad, drawn smile. He shook his head again, not knowing what to do either. He'd run for miles planning ways to lock Bella up like a treasure. She wouldn't know it was kidnapping if Alice distracted her, right? He had to protect her from herself, from his family's machinations, from Victoria, from the Volturi, from the wolves. Sometimes he had to protect her from Edward. Bella wasn't safe anywhere.

But his plotting had borne no fruit. He had seen the inside of Jacob's head and he knew that cloistering Bella away from that mutt would only turn Jacob into the hero. Kidnapping was out. They converged in the hallway and he put his arm around her, shielding her from the mundane life of high school. They only had another month of this farce.

"Carlisle acts as though this is the fulfillment of a prophecy. As though our fighting somehow makes us holy," Edward sighed. He loved Bella so much, his chest was bursting from it. But she made him so angry, and she was turning him against his family.

"You're fighting with Carlisle now?"

"You would, too," he said, "His theology is running wild." Bella remembered the philosophical conversations she used to have with Carlisle before she'd been grounded for eternity. Even though she didn't believe in God or souls, she missed talking with him. He'd always been polite to her, too shy to proselytize. She tried to change the subject for the better.

"Charlie met Jasper. He likes him," she gave a hesitant smile but Edward's steely face did not change. Everyone liked Jasper if Jasper wanted them to.

"I don't know whether I should be mad at him or you for leaking that horror story," he said. "You don't need to hear about his reign of terror, it'll only make you more scared of him."

"I'm not afraid of Jasper," Bella replied. Edward laughed bitterly, sitting beside her in their next class.

"C'mon," he said, "I've watched you. The two of you are always on tenterhooks together."

"No," Bella protested, "we're not. He's my brother now, too. I'm not scared of him."

"I can't believe this," Edward muttered, "Everyone's against me now, I've only got Rosalie left."

"That's not—"

"Attention to the front, Miss Swan!" Chided the teacher. The rest of the school day was strained. Bella, Alice and even Jasper had to walk on eggshells around Edward who was acting as though he'd been betrayed by everyone.

The evidence was crashing around him: he had absolutely no control over this relationship. He fought this truth, raged against it, terrified of what would happen if he let go. She could leave him. She could be turned at any minute and become something un-Bella. She could die, be utterly annihilated if he let go of her. Nothing made sense to him. She wouldn't marry him, yet she was ready to throw her life away to be with him. She insisted that she loved him yet she hurt him daily with her pursuit of that mongrel. He loved her, but she drove him insane.

When he walked her back to her truck at the end of the day, she had hoped maybe Edward had calmed down. Then she saw that Jacob was parked by her truck, astride his motorcycle. He had to have been avoiding his pack all day to make it this far. Edward strode angrily alongside her in furious detail.

"Churlish, usurping son of a bitch!" Edward shouted, "Stay away from her!"

"Or what?" Jacob laughed, "Are you really going to monitor and approve all of Bella's friends?"

"You're no friend of hers," he began, but Bella broke in between the two again.

"Switzerland!" She shouted. She briefly noticed the stares from half the school in the parking lot. She was standing between Edward-Oh-My-God-Cullen and a giant, 'roided-out Quileute on a motorcycle. She heard Jessica utter, "I don't fucking _believe_ it!" _One more month of this crap_, Bella told herself. She turned to her old best friend.

"Why are you here, Jacob? Did Victoria come back?" She couldn't hide the fear in her voice.

"Nothing's wrong," he said, stammering, "I, I just thought… we could run again." His posture was familiar, the chin soft and his eyes careful. This was the Jacob she had remembered from months earlier.

"Throw your bike in the back," she said mechanically, hope and fever brightening her eyes. She needed a run with Jacob so badly, she missed him so terribly. She turned to Edward, "Call me when you calm down."

Edward stared helplessly. He'd had a chance to surprise Bella with his magnanimity, to prove himself the gentleman again. Instead he'd shown up brutish and swearing again.

"Bella," Edward said, neither of them knowing where his words were going. She was already in the truck, trying to escape his black cloud. But she loved him and she was magnetized to Edward. When she turned to look at him he was weak, frail.

"I'm sorry," he said. She opened her car door and he kissed her, soft and tremulous. Their moment was broken by the jarring crash of Jacob throwing his bike into the truck bed. There was a delighted squeal from across the parking lot from a gaggle of girls and that chubby boy Mike Newton pushed around. Jacob was clearly impressive.

"I'll see you tonight?" She asked Edward, ignoring the loud presence of Jacob climbing into the truck beside her. Edward nodded and stepped back, letting go, watching. He couldn't keep her.

* * *

She did her best to make it evident to Jacob that he had not won. They drove in silence, or at least as much silence as the back-fire and sputter of her old Chevy would allow. Bella had the _don__'t-talk-to-me_ vibes cranked all the way up, but she'd also agreed to go running with him. The weather was getting warmer and she had a tank-top under her button-down. She shrugged out of the shirt in the Swan driveway, killing the engine. Her broad, rounded shoulders had once been adorned with bruises from the riot conditioning. Jacob had once jokingly called them wings trying to break free of her freckled skin. He swallowed, unsure where to stand as Bella marched past him.

"Let me go get my shoes," she muttered, hoping she might be able to run in and out before Charlie noticed she had a running partner. She'd been gone all weekend visiting Renee and when she came back Charlie had to accommodate the new presence of Jasper. He'd blow a gasket if he saw that Jacob was hanging around again. She changed quickly, ignoring her unshaven legs. Werewolves were in no place to complain about body hair. She skipped quickly down the stairs in her toe shoes, but she could already hear the voices coming off the porch.

"I expected you of all people to take more care with driving!" Charlie was yelling, but then she heard Jacob's louder, deeper voice.

"You think I ever forget about Mom? You think I go a single day forgetting that? I know what I'm doing, Charlie, and you aren't my father. Billy is. You can ground Bella but you can't touch me."

"Dad?" Bella asked at the foot of the stairs, interrupting their argument.

"So Jake's back, too?" He asked, crossing his arms and sizing up the six-and-a-half-foot werewolf.

"We're going for a run," Bella said, moving past him, "You can come along if you want." But she grabbed Jacob's wrist and pulled him off the porch before Charlie could respond. At dinner the previous night Charlie brought up the fact that Bella spent most of her time with young boys, and it made him anxious to see her alone with them in cars or the woods. But like Edward, he felt helpless with Bella. He shouted after them that he'd be busy checking the locks on the windows and cleaning his gun.

"Bella?" Jacob asked when they had made it a few feet through the spring greenery of mid-May. He could just hear the clicking sound of a shotgun being pumped. Not responding, she broke into a fast clip. He easily kept up with her, watching as she tried to control her breathing, pushing herself too fast and too hard. They'd only made it a half a mile when Bella had to slow down, her breathing ragged and her lungs burning.

"Bella?" He asked with greater concern, moving a hand to her back. She bent over and started to cry, gasping for air between sobs. He crouched down to get eye-level with her, he'd forgotten what happened to his insides when she cried. It made him feel like a snail cracked under a boot. She pushed him away weakly and shouted,

"I'm so _pissed_ at you! At both of you! All of you! I can't win! Nothing I do is good enough!"

"Bella, you _can_ win," Jacob said, easily absorbing her shoves. "C'mon, let's just walk it out. The crocuses are up."

Bella wiped at her face but kept crying despite her efforts to stop and Jacob walked beside her, pointing to running moss and crocuses, uncovering a few snowdrops. Spring was breaking out of the undergrowth. He led them to a nearby road so they could stare at people's burgeoning gardens. They saw daffodil shoots and other signs that the thaw was over.

Bella identified a narcissus, and then felt obliged to relate the myth to Jacob. He was careful not to crack any easy jokes about Edward's narcissism, and he knew she appreciated that. Her eyes had dried up and the red blotches on her face faded.

"You can still win," he reminded her after awhile. She shook her head sadly and withdrew her hand from his when she realized he had taken it.

"No, I can't. I lose every time."

"You can come back to the rez," he offered. A choke of tears brimmed her lashes but she just smiled and nodded gratefully.

"Thanks, Jake. I'd like that."

"Me, too. I prefer to be your babysitter when Victoria is around."

"I'm so sick of that vampire bitch. Can't you just kill her and get it over with?" She asked.

"We're doing our best. If she has any magic, it's for escapes. She's super slippery and she hasn't shown her face since Friday night."

"I'm sorry," Bella apologized, "I should be more grateful. Thank you for doing this. It's my fault she's even trying to get here." Jacob screwed up his face in thought and then ruffled a hand through Bella's hair with a laugh,

"Yeah, it is your fault." She smiled, but it looked weak and tired.

"I wanna go home," she said.

"It's about five miles off," Jacob said with a half-apologetic grin. She rolled her eyes and gave him a friendly punch to the shoulder.

"You did that on purpose. Fine. I can jog it." Jacob had been meaning to offer to carry her. But he didn't push it, gamely jogging alongside her. She didn't seem like a zombie and she'd even agreed to visit him regularly on the reservation. He could draw the poison from her, he would just have to be patient.

* * *

She arrived on her front porch with a stain of sweat down her back and shimmering along her skin. The two of them hugged and then parted with only a few words, promising to see each other again soon.

She had already showered and he heard her talking back to her exam review when he tapped at the window. She set the disobedient work aside and found that her window was unaccustomedly locked.

"The boy-parade is making Charlie paranoid," she apologized, "I'll ask Alice over as soon as possible."

"Freesia shampoo and wet dog," Edward said as he slipped through the window, "and you're still irresistible." She pulled him against her into a kiss, breaking free only to murmur,

"Shut up." It was a command and he kept to it.

They lay on a clear space of floor, Bella immediately untucked his shirt and Edward relinquished control. He put forward no resistance, satisfied with the fact that she was choosing him, wanting _him_. Whatever his dark side said, in this moment he belonged to Bella.

She was like a child, using her mouth to understand the shape of things. His hip bone, the rope of tenderloin muscle just under his skin, the bristling small copper hairs. Just when he began to wonder whether he should stop her exploration she moved the expedition north. She cupped his ear in her mouth and for a moment Edward wanted to exist in the warm wound of that orifice. He could shrink down to the size of a penny and she'd tuck him into her cheek, carrying him around like a nut. That would be okay with him.

Somehow they made the sharing of their mouths into a lengthy and arduous rite. Even though Bella's frail, human body ached for Edward, she wanted her pathetic skin to memorize his touch. She wanted a full catalog of caresses. Edward didn't mind her slow seduction, offering a hard bump for her to grind against.

Sleepy and left with a pleasant craving for more, Bella curled her warm body around the half-naked corpse of her lover.

"What was it like?" She murmured, her voice too tired to wake itself to full height.

"You were there," Edward laughed lightly, kissing her hairline and tracing his fingers along her face, "Sensual. Warm."

"No," Bella interrupted, "I mean… when you were human. With the… women." It seemed she didn't want to say _prostitutes_, as though that were an unmentionable secret. Edward paused, this was a moment in which telepathy would have been helpful. Edward scrutinized her features, mustering all his long-dead arts of reading body language. But Bella only ever gave off two signals: _Let me be free_ and _Tell me the truth_. It was exhausting.

He gave a compulsive swallow. This was hard, remembering back into that murky life. It was like recalling the size of the world from childhood, trying to remember what it was like always looking up. The brain had readjusted the memories and he had to sift carefully.

"It was like paying someone to help you sneeze," he said carefully, "it was pleasant in a way and you were appreciative, but there was little else."

"Did it work?" She asked, "Were you… educated?" Edward turned to his side, smiling. This was an easy answer.

"No and yes," he began, "Yes, I learned the basic anatomy and some of the less romantic aspects of sex, but I would not call myself educated even if I had been with a hundred women. Bella," He said pressing his forehead to her own. This was his truest apology, his actions speaking louder than his harsh words, "No one could have ever prepared me for you. _You_ teach me. Sex will be about us. I could never have learned it with anyone else."

It was moments like this where Bella's desire to play out a slow seduction of Edward Cullen began to dissolve, where she felt her body burst into unrelenting screams and her chest tighten. _It would be all right_, she thought to herself, _if it just happened now. On a Monday for no particular reason except that I want him_. Any idea of sleepiness was gone and she wanted him. It hurt not to have him.

"Please," she whispered, pulling her own shirt over her head, "please." Her body was asking for him, he promised not to say _no_ anymore. Edward had to think quickly. There was no way that he and Bella could have sex tonight, not with Charlie downstairs or so many questions lurking. Not when he didn't even know how he would control himself and still enjoy her. Alice hadn't found a work-around.

"Just a little," he conceded. They would figure this out, they had to. It was the first time they had both been shirtless, the first time he had felt so much of his skin against hers. She reached behind her back to unclip her bra and he maneuvered her to lay on her back. He could practice leaning just enough of his weight into her, he began to think, but then he saw her nipples. Something gave way inside of him, reason broke into pieces and all he could feel was a new, unfamiliar hunger.

Her legs locked around his torso as he moved his mouth down her body, kissing her breasts and drawing new sounds from this woman he loved. He reached up a hand to twist into her hair but she caught it, pulling the fingers into her mouth. Her back arched, her tongue slid along his fingers, and Edward groaned. She would always be his.

* * *

Jacob was waiting, arms crossed and alone, when Bella pulled through the reservation. He was careful not to wear Sam's uniform, to keep her away from the window where Billy could shout or scowl his disapproval. It would take time to draw the venom out, especially in the continuing presence of the vampires. He decided to take her on a run along the edges of the water, coating her in salt-spray, pine sap and sand. These were the vestiges of his life, the smells and memories. These might bring her back to him.

He had a plan. It had once been the shibboleth bringing him into Bella's deeper circles, their shared love of planning. She would have to spill herself for him, he could not force this. But today, on their first day together on the reservation he would wait for her to lead conversation and he would listen. Beyond the necessary pleasantries, she was starkly silent. _That__'s okay,_ he told himself. He had patience and the woods would work for him. The wolves told him it was hopeless, that she was already gone, but he knew that wasn't true. If she were already gone then why did none of them wish to kill her as they did the true vampires? Bella was still human, and so long as her heart was beating there was hope.

Her endurance was wasted and they had to work sprints, but she still remained stoic. An hour passed and then two. They covered drills, but Jacob kept his distance, no longer correcting her with his hands. She appreciated that. He was watching, always watching. They did not wrestle, they probably never would again. Finally, he invited her to stay for dinner.

"What about Billy?" She asked. Here, this was his moment.

"What about him?" He responded.

"I'm as good as a Cullen now, Jacob. There's nothing but bad blood between us."

"And me," he said, "I'm between you."

She remembered Jacob standing up to Charlie and her heart fractured. He was probably fighting everyone just to have this time with her. He was the only thing keeping her safe on the reservation. To the others, she was a traitor. She looked closely at her old best-friend and remembered the few returned post-cards. _I__'m still betrayed_, he had written.

"Jacob, this is too much. You're a single boy holding back the inevitable. I can't turn you against your tribe."

"I'm not a boy," he reminded her, "And it's too late," he said, leading her to the house. "Don't forget that I've been fighting them before you came along. You're just the latest installment." She followed him into the kitchen, watched him warm her up some soup and slice some bread. She thought back to the breaking man in the woods, shoulders shaking and hands cupping his face. She was supposed to be fighting for him this time.

"You're more alike than you know," she began, wondering if this was the right tack, "you and Edward."

"Maybe we shouldn't talk about that," Jacob said. His back was to Bella and he missed her grim smile. Edward had the same problem with Jacob, but she couldn't make-up with Jake the same way she did with Edward. She pressed it a little further.

"He doesn't want to turn me," she said. Jacob dropped the soup ladle in the pot, splashing broth on his front and not minding the burns. "If he could be human that is what he would choose," she continued, "He never asked for this."

"I remember you saying that Carlisle _did_ ask his permission first. Edward _did_ ask to be a vampire. It's me, Jacob Black, who got the bullet in Russian roulette," Jake tried to control his voice but she saw he was angry. "He knew what he was doing." She felt chastened. She couldn't explain that Edward had only wanted a father, only wanted to live.

"Let's talk about something nicer," Jake offered. The _something nicer_ never came, or if it did it was in the form of complete silence. When Bella finished her bowl she excused herself, promising to visit Jacob again later in the week and bring him the shoes she'd kept at the store.

* * *

"This here's a black tea with some citron in it. I think citron is like an Asian orange or something. It's kind of like a grapefruit, but sweeter." Charlie poured out a cupful of tea for Edward and another for himself. It was Tuesday and time for one of their regular meetings. Charlie's mustache sipped at the tea in appreciation. "Zingy," he commented. Edward gave a polite nod, drinking down a beverage he could not enjoy. He was glad Charlie could not read his mind, because all Edward could think at that moment was, _Last night I sucked your daughter__'s nipples._ After setting aside his cup Charlie gave Edward the Sheriff's eyeball. For the first time, it was honestly frightening.

"You aren't asking me why I lifted Bella's privileges to let her see Jacob," he said. Bella was out eating silent soup with the wolf boy.

"I've given up trying to control Bella," Edward said smoothly, "I don't see that it is my place to question your attempts."

"Yeah, she's… well she's definitely mine and she's definitely Renee's. Got a bit of both in there."

"My visit with Renee was very pleasant," Edward added for conversation, "though she is more extroverted than Bella."

"Ed, I wouldn't call marrying Renee a mistake. I loved her, and I still do, even if she is a psychotic hippie bitch sometimes. It wasn't a well-formed thought, maybe. Or I was carried away on endorphins. Anyway, everything about that marriage turned bad, but I got Bella out of it. So maybe it's worthwhile."

"Sir?"

"Call me Charlie, boy. Now what I'm saying is, I made some rash decisions when I was Bella's age and it set me in for a world of pain. But it also gave me my only daughter. Grounding Bella isn't doing much of anything, and she seems to kind of like it. Reading like a fiend up there all the time, reminds me of the summers she used to visit…" Charlie cut himself off from that reverie.

"Anyway, she only seems to miss two things: your family and the Blacks. Unfortunately, I am partial to both those things. I really only want to keep her away from you, and that hasn't worked at all." He sipped his tea again and then shook his head, "That Jasper boy is a fine piece of work. I bet his daddy was an officer, too. I don't know where you went wrong, Ed, with role models like him and Dr. Cullen around."

"These are my own personal demons, Charlie," Edward said over his cup of tea.

"Yeah, I can see that." He paused but Edward could see it coming and held back a smile as Charlie formed the next sentence, "I don't like to admit it, but watching you try and earn Bella's love has made me respect you… some. I want a boy who'll fight for Bella, one who appreciates her. You're turning yourself around and you give her room to breathe. You'd die for her, too, I can see that." These were complimentary statements, but the way Charlie's mouth was working around his mustache, and from the ominous tone in Charlie's brain, Edward knew not to be grateful yet.

"I'm partial to the Blacks. Always will be. But that isn't my choice to make, and in the end it doesn't even really matter if it is the right choice or not. It's Bella's choice. I never really controlled her anyway, she's just been playing along when it suits her. So I'm reinstating her privileges, she's not grounded anymore. Which means your community service is up, too."

"It's been a pleasure spending these evenings with you, Charlie," Edward said sincerely. "Bella is a lot like you in many ways. After meeting Renee, it is interesting to see where she draws from her parents."

"Hmph," Charlie said.

"My father, Carlisle, wanted to offer you the same. It would be our pleasure if you would dine at our house sometime. You already know my father, as well as Alice and Jasper, but you've yet to meet my mother or my brother Emmett and sister Rosalie. I assure you," Edward continued, "I am the least charismatic figure in the family. The others easily make up for my faults."

"That's very kind of Dr. Cullen," Charlie said leaning back in his chair, releasing Edward from his interrogation. "I will call him to work out something with our schedules. Thank you, Ed. You're not such a bad kid," he reached his arm across the table to shake Edward's hand. When he gripped it, he pulled Edward a little closer to him. Edward let himself be pulled,

"Not a _great_ kid, I'm not forgiving you yet. But I guess I can see why Bella's fond of you."

"Thank you, Charlie." Edward smiled, waiting for the father to release his grip. It wouldn't do to hurt Charlie now that he was finally getting on his good side.

In the days leading up to the big family dinner, Bella would run through the woods with Jacob, who would occasionally shout, "Push ups!" or "Sprint!" Otherwise their time together had become almost entirely silent. Bella couldn't stand to talk any more, she felt as though she'd been wrung dry and just needed to move again. Jacob was still watchful, waiting to see if she was salvageable.

Bella didn't like reliving shared custody, but it was a patchwork solution to the present problem. She worked out with intense fervor when she was with Jacob, running and doing drills. They didn't wrestle anymore, and he touched her as little as necessary. It was this new distance and lack of touch that brought a strain to their rekindled friendship. There was too much left unsaid.

At night she would return to her house and prepare for exams until Edward showed up. Then they would push feverishly against each other, trying to heal themselves by force and passion. With Edward, too, she said less and less, letting her body speak for her. She could feel the impending night, the torturous evening where she would ask for more. But she was still afraid, afraid of what she would feel if he said _No_.

The evening of the great family dinner was approaching, and due to Carlisle and Charlie's schedules it fell on a Monday, which was a day she usually spent with the Blacks.

The Cullen-Hales were nervous even though they had seven and the Swans barely made two, what with Bella being nearly family. The vampires had drained huge, spring-crazed forest creatures just before the scheduled event. This would be their greatest test, a measure of their unified love for Bella. Charlie would be coming over straight from work and Bella agreed to help Carlisle and Esme with the cooking beforehand, tasting food while it was prepared to make sure the recipes were done properly.

She showed up at the Cullens early and sweaty, Jacob dropped her off from his motorcycle after a strenuous run followed by body-weight exercises. Alice opened the door with a finger pinched to her ski-slope nose.

"Oh my _God_, Bella. You are such a barbarian." She led Bella to the bathroom, which already had a scented bath filled with bubbles.

"You're going to have to shower before you get in there," Alice said. "Do you need me to scrub that mutt off you? I'm used to washing your naked ass."

"No thanks, Alice, I can handle showers on my own now." It was later, after she'd used the loofahs and the rinses with broken apricot pits, that Alice was braiding Bella's hair and giddily laughing about the "work around" she and Jasper were trying for Edward and Bella's sake. Bella's color turned from blushing to deathly pale.

"I don't want him to have to _take it_!" She cried, twisting in her chair and turning to Alice whose gleeful expression faded. Her near-sister vampire collected Bella into her arms, muttering soothing lies and promising it would all be okay.

"I could smell her blushing from my room," Edward said, letting himself into Alice's bedroom. The two of them were hugging and Bella's eyes were wet. Graduation was less than three weeks away, and while she wanted to have the right accoutrements to give herself to Edward, she wasn't ready to be a vampire yet. Unfortunately, this was not a conversation she could have with her unsympathetic lover.

"You've got half an hour before Carlisle needs help with the duck," Alice smirked, injecting some levity into the room, "Want a ball gag?" She tossed a rubber ball to Edward that had some kind of strap attached to it. He caught and pocketed it, ignoring the news flashing in Alice's head. Bella wanted to change because she was horny and they had set a date in the summer. It was like those kids who got married just to screw. They'd regret it later. Edward had to think fast.

"Thanks, sis. C'mon, Bella. Let's make you smell like a Cullen." Edward led her into his room. He turned on a CD and began to waltz with Bella, his nose in her damp hair, thinking to himself. She curled her body around his, quiet and impossible. He spun her away from him and then pulled her back.

"Talking hasn't really been working for us, has it?" He murmured into her glossy black hair.

"No," she sighed, her lips brush along his neck. She was tired of talking already.

"I want you, Bella," he said, still helping her dance. Her heart rate sped up and every ear but hers could hear it.

"I want you, too," she said, and she sounded like she might cry as she said it. "Alice said it would all be okay, that somehow things would work out in the end. But it feels dismal and raw."

She sounded too sad, as though she could no longer heal. But maybe having Edward would heal something in her.

He sighed and moved his hand away from her waist, down her thigh before pausing.

"Can I just… feel you?" He asked into her ear.

"Won't they hear?" She asked.

"They'll always hear. It is how it is." Bella took Edward's hand in hers, moving it under her knee-length skirt and between her legs. She gave a gasp of surprise to feel the cool hand cupping her.

"Just here," he murmured, not venturing any further, letting a thin veil of cotton separate his hand from her burning rose. Bella pulled his mouth against hers, feeling her knees give out. And for twenty minutes they lay together, kissing and trembling at the intensity of touch.

Eventually Edward withdrew his now-hot hand.

"They'll need a taste tester in the kitchen," he said, nuzzling her neck. She pushed longingly against him, wanting to go through with this dinner far less than she did an hour earlier.

"Alice said that she and Jasper didn't find a work-around, yet," Bella pouted.

"Bella," Edward hushed her, "sex is more than you think it is. We'll make our own work-around." She nodded, aflame and afraid all at once.

Charlie showed up on time in his Sheriff's jacket and politely removed his hat. Emmett tried to sneak in behind him, which was rather like hiding a rhinoceros. He had a small brown bag with last-minute dessert. Bella had the unfortunate task of telling Rosalie that her cake had been ruined when the blonde added a quarter cup rather than a quarter tablespoon of baking soda. There had been an exciting moment when Rosalie had flung the cake at Bella, and Esme had stepped between the two women, taking a faceful of salty bicarbonate-cake. Bella's clothes were unharmed and Esme recovered quickly but Jasper had been relugated to sit beside Rosalie, his knee always in contact with hers to keep her calm.

"What's that?" Charlie asked, peeking his face over the brown paper bag.

"It's a pomelo fruit and some dark chocolate," Emmett said, having rehearsed the lines carefully and delivering them with a wooden smile. He'd long forgotten the pleasures of human food, far preferring bears or the occasional unlucky traveler.

"Well I'll be," Charlie said, holding a volleyball-sized fruit in his hand, "this'll be your doing, won't it, Ed?" All the Cullens stared at Edward as though he'd just been hit with a faceful of salty cake as well, but he was used to the nickname and gave a polite laugh, leading Charlie to the dining room.

Charlie had been so mesmerized by the new citrus fruit that he hadn't really grasped the size of Emmett and let out a whistle when he finally saw the whole family together.

"Charlie," Edward said, offering the introductions, "this is my mother Esme and my adopted siblings Emmett and Rosalie. You already know Jasper, Alice and Carlisle."

"You want to be a cop?" Charlie asked Emmett. Emmett had asked Edward for note cards, as if he could study for the dinner, but Edward had refused. Jasper shot a dose of relaxation toward his burly brother who finally replied, "Naw, but I love beating up bad guys."

Charlie smiled, "Vigilante heroism. I'm just glad you're on the side of good. And may I say, I could never have imagined a more lovely and youthful woman, Mrs. Cullen,"

"Please, call me Esme," she smiled. Charlie sat down at the table, making friendly introductions to the nervous vampires.

It was Jasper's moment to shine and he took artistic pride in his abilities. The parents were given glasses of wine and the "minors" drank ginger ale in champagne flutes. Charlie stood to offer a toast to Edward, and Jasper sent him calming, grateful vibes.

"Edward," Charlie said, feeling oddly sentimental, "There have been days where I've wished that car hit you square-on last year." Polite laughter, "But each and every time Bella reminds me that if it weren't for you, she wouldn't have made it. You've got your faults, but my daughter loves you, and I love your family." It was the nicest, truest thing Charlie could muster.

After the toast, everyone got a wave of minor inebriation, loosening tongues and relaxing shoulders. When Carlisle brought in the yellow carrot soup a new layer of friendliness and familiarity was added.

By the time the duck was served, everyone was laughing and smiling. The vampire family were all expressing a warm, candlelit glow from their pale cheeks, the Benicio-del-Toro-circles under their eyes entirely gone. Because the Cullen-Hales so greatly outnumbered the Charlie Swans, most of the vampires were able to relax naturally. Charlie spent the evening speaking with Emse and Carlisle, corroborating stories of obstreperous children. Bella blushed fetchingly, but Edward was across the table from her, his hands safely beside his plate and no longer beneath her skirt. Still, she couldn't help but think he had offered her a promise. She let herself get drunk on Jasper's waves and drove Charlie home after a perfect evening.

* * *

"I need the house," Edward told Alice that evening. He couldn't let her teenage hormones make Bella turn into a vampire. The family was enjoying a rare sport of communal hurling. Jasper and Emmett were trying to see who could spit balls of duck the furthest, and Esme had already forgiven Rosalie for the cake to the face. Carlisle leaned forward and let out a thin spout of liquid which lasted for so long he drew stares. When the fountain finally dried up he wiped his mouth and laughed,

"I had to keep up with Mr. Swan!"

"Carlisle and Esme hold the mortgage," Alice chirped with a fake apology, swelling up her chest to chuck a bolus further than her crowing husband. She beat him by fifteen feet. Then she gave Edward a knowing smile, "Jasper hasn't been this high since he was a human. I almost forgive you for the whole Volterra thing." It was enough hearing his sister and brother-in-law banging away like a construction crew all the time, he didn't need to see the vivid images in her head as well.

"Please, Alice," he begged, his meager dinner already purged, "is there anytime in the near future when I could get most of you out of town for an evening? Hunting or… something?"

"Sure," she raised an eyebrow and he knew what was coming, "I'll just ask Victoria to come back and we can all go chase her while you and Bella bump uglies."

"That isn't what we're doing," he said, "we just need some privacy. Please?"

"Well," she worked her mouth in a fairly good imitation of Sheriff Swan, "Jasper wanted to go check on that rogue Newborn in Seattle, see if maybe he couldn't step in for the Volturi who are taking their sweet time. I _could_ convince the others to go hunting while we take a trip next weekend. But it would be difficult work, seeing how we're all full to the brim anyway. I'd need some proper _motivation_."

"Anything," Edward said, remembering the hot moisture just behind the cotton fabric, "I will buy you anything."

Alice rolled her eyes. Edward was so hard up for nookie that he wasn't even being subtle. It wasn't like he had more money than her, or that there was anything he could get her that she couldn't easily nab herself. _It has to be a gift, and the only thing that made gifts worthwhile is sacrifice._ Edward saw this all flash through her brain and before she got any insane Alice-ideas, he interrupted her.

"The yellow Porsche. The one you loved so much back in Italy, it's yours. You can drive it all the way to Seattle." The Alice-god accepted his burnt offering, smiling and appeased.

* * *

The next day Bella saw Jacob again to make up for their shortened session the day before. She seemed cheerier this time and asked to do gymnastics instead of endurance.

"I don't want to get too sweaty, I have an appointment tonight. You're invited," she smiled. So much of her relationship with Jacob had been physical and she found it difficult rebuilding the friendship when touch was no longer allowed. Perhaps Edward had been right to be jealous.

"An appointment?" He asked, leading her to a dry, level patch of ground where they could do cartwheels and rolls. She explained Charlie's _laissez-faire_ approach to parenting, the new turn he'd developed as a final coping mechanism to endure his teenage daughter. He said yes to just about anything now, knowing he couldn't really stop her anymore and that trying usually made things worse. It didn't hurt that he'd been liquored up when she asked him.

"I'm getting a tattoo," she grinned. There was a paradoxical sensation in Jacob's chest and he couldn't tell whether her smile was warming him up or freezing his heart.

"Of what?" He ventured. If she got _Edward Forever_ on her forehead he would have to kidnap her, treaty or no treaty.

"A flower. Just a pretty tulip that I've always liked. But it's actually a specific painting of a tulip. Art," she explained, purposefully avoiding the back-story of the infected bulb and the maddening beauty. She pulled a computer print-out from her back pocket after executing a perfect double-roll and handed it to him. The painting seemed innocuous. Another lie.

"Why?" He asked, motioning for her to start rolling on her non-dominant side.

"Why not?" She responded, falling sloppily onto her side and frowning. She hated rolling on that side. Jacob struck the proper pose, purposefully avoiding touching her. She wanted to hug him and tell him everything would be all right, that he needed to trust her. She wanted to punch his arm during a joke and have him spot her handstands. But she knew that Jacob couldn't handle it, that he was still fighting to "win" her away from Edward. And she also knew that her own body encouraged him, her own insecurities enjoyed his attentions. The distance was absolutely necessary if their friendship was to be salvaged. As she lined herself up alongside him, mimicking his motions, he said,

"Because it's permanent." She executed a perfect roll but the elation was undermined by his prying. She didn't like this, there were so many secrets between them now. She and Alice had talked about Bella turning as early as next month. She couldn't say something like that to Jacob, not now.

"Well you don't have to come. It will take a few hours so you might get bored anyway."

"No," he said immediately, "I'll be there. You shouldn't go alone."

That evening Jacob held her hand and told her old stories he had recited to his sisters growing up. Some of them were old campfire stories of ghosts and sea monsters, nothing particular to his tribal history. He felt the urge to recollect old memories of his sisters, to tell Bella about growing up with those two crazy girls and his bull-headed mother, but it somehow felt wrong now. He couldn't expose that to her, not with the tattoo artist listening.

He watched the fast-moving electric needle inking along her wrist, the tattooist pausing every few beats to wipe something away. He could tell Bella was in pain by the way she squeezed his hand, so he talked about how the first Quileute warriors were shape shifters, sending their soul out of their bodies to explore the greater world. It was a long, interesting story that captivated her attention, keeping it away from the stabbing pain. The tattooist was also listening and pointed to a page in one of his art books.

"I do a discount on couples," he suggested, indicating a spread of wolves howling at moons or stony-faced chieftains with wild headdresses. Jacob declined and continued his stories, lowering his voice in an effort for privacy.

"Thanks," Bella smiled in the truck, gauze taped over her tender tattoo. He drove her home and would run the distance back. "Those were good stories, do you have any more?" It wasn't so bad when they were like this together.

It was easy to drive slowly in that old Chevy and Jacob spun out the tale of his ancestors, enraged by the new menace of the cold ones. He'd been holding this one back, the story of the third wife. It was a story of independence and sacrifice for love, not something he wanted to relate in front of a stranger. It was the story of women as warriors, a history Bella would easily fit into.

She belonged with him and with the warriors-he had to show her that. It was a testament to the poison inside her that she was blind to this simple truth. It was so clear to him, the wolves were protectors who were only formed as a reaction to the unnatural and soul-sucking evil known as the cold ones. He was the good guy in all of this and Edward, no matter how civilized, was the monster. This story, the one of the third wife, would show her the truth about the Quileutes and the cold ones.

It only took one vampire to slaughter a healthy tribe. It took just one ruthless female with a penchant for chaos and unnatural thirst to mow down the young men and the chief. What if Bella became that vampiress when she changed? What if she were a war machine? But if she became a Quileute, well, it took only one old woman to save them.

She was the third wife of the chief who she had watched die alongside their son only minutes earlier. She was not strong and not young, but the warriors were dying, soon the tribe would be annihilated. The human woman, motivated by grief and defiance, strode forward with a rock.

"This is what we do for love," Jacob said, describing how the seemingly useless mortal saved his tribe. Stabbing herself in the heart she spilled her own blood for the vampiress. It was the distraction that the last warriors needed, and as the cold one turned on this new fountain of blood, the remaining men caught and killed her. The third wife did not survive her wounds, but she was an example of ingenuity and sacrifice.

"If you won't become the third wife, then I will," Jacob said, turning off the engine. Bella couldn't meet his eyes, it was all too horrible. She couldn't process the threat and the ultimatum that this man in a seventeen-year-old body was giving her.

He would go to the end with her, tying himself to her destiny. She got out of the truck, not even saying goodbye. She was too disturbed by his story and the promise of his own destruction, this pitiful idea of sacrifice.

She hid her tears from Edward when he came, unable to explain to him that Jacob had scared her by acting too much like the old Edward this evening. Another man devaluing life, another ultimatum given in the name of love. Edward wouldn't care if Jacob stopped existing, it might even come as a relief. She said the tears were from the tattoo and Bella kept the stories to herself.


	4. What Is Sex

The idea of a pajama party with Alice was so enticing that Bella was initially disappointed when she arrived at the Cullen mansion and found she'd been tricked. Edward wasn't chasing a lead in Seattle and Alice was happily throwing a suitcase of "driving clothes" into the back of a ghastly and familiar-looking yellow Porsche. Jasper sat in the passenger seat deliberately avoiding Bella's eyes. He looked like he was holding back a fit of laughter.

Edward circled his arm around Bella's soft waist, waving as the two vampires sped backwards down the winding driveway.

"I didn't have the heart to lie to Charlie, and I didn't want to make you lie either. Alice is such a good, good sister. So very, very, _very_ good," he mumbled to himself.

"So we have the night together?" Bella asked, her brain moving at a glacial pace.

"I hope you're not hungry. We have a full fridge, but I really wanted to show you the renovations I've been making to my room."

"Huhhmmmuuh," she acquiesced dazedly. He left her bag of clothes in the living room and she followed a measure behind him. As they approached the closed bedroom door she felt her stomach constrict and all of her blood explode outward to her extremities. She was a bursting star, ready to be consumed by her own fires.

"If I may, it's a new room and I feel… well…" Edward shrugged, deciding he didn't need her blessing on this one desire he swept her up, collecting her bride-style into his arms and kicking open the door. She landed safely on the other side of the threshold, staring at a bed which was too large to have made it into the room in a single piece. It had a canopy and shiny, shiny silk sheets. She made another bemused gurgling sound.

"Is this okay?" He asked with sudden trepidation.

Then he was wearing her like a Kevlar vest. She plastered herself to his front in a mad scramble of limbs, trying to scale him like a tree. His shout of surprise was muffled by a mouthful of Bella. Only his super-human dexterity landed them safely onto the bed.

"Wait, wait," he mouthed through kisses. He had music he was going to play and the lighting wasn't quite right.

"No more waiting," Bella breathed, and in a single motion she pulled off her shirt and bra. There was an adorable pause as Edward's eyes were captivated and his jaw slack, but she was already wrestling with his shirt. He was wearing buttons that must have been designed by locksmiths and she wished that for one day in his eternal life Edward would just be a normal teenager and wear a t-shirt, but he was gently removing her trembling fingers and unbuttoning his shirt himself.

"Bella, we should—"

"Yes," she agreed, smushing her soft body along the cool, familiar planes of his.

"I mean that we—"

"Uh huh," she covered his mouth in her own, pulling him on top of her.

"I have music," he protested, trying to get the words out around her tongue in his mouth.

"Edward, they could be back any minute!" she cried, groping frantically at his whole body with her own.

"It's only been ten minutes," he laughed. She pulled her eyes close to his. She looked feverish.

"Edward Cullen do you want to fuck me?"

A million insane-crazies burst like machine-fire in Edward's head. There were roaring lions and super noavas, images of splintering wood and the outrageous desire for Edward to turn himself inside-out all over this girl. All he managed to say was,

"In so many words, yes."

"Then shut up," she said.

In response, she felt the unmistakable sensation of Edward undoing her belt. Her heartbeat, which was already pumping bright, oxygenated blood to her groaning organs, sped up seven-fold. She felt a cool hand tuck itself between her thighs, warming in her crux. She didn't know what else to do except draw her knees apart and press her mouth to Edward, letting every part of her body cry out an unmistakable _Yes_! Then, his own mouth on her ear and his breathing somewhat ragged, she felt him draw aside the not-sexy underpants she had worn for a slumber party and a warm finger disappeared inside her.

It wasn't magic, it wasn't epic, it was gentle and slow. He was searching, exploring her and listening to the gasps or groans she made in response. He murmured words into her ear but she couldn't hear them. Instead, her body fell into a singular purpose and as that purpose swelled against his touch, she guided his hands to imitate an action she had only ever done alone. It was new and startling to have Edward's fingers touching, rubbing and seeking inside her. The novelty of his touch made it so that she couldn't press against the permeable barrier of sanity as she so easily could in her own bedroom. Instead, she felt only gasps and wanting, desire and surprise. It was intense and beautiful, though she never broke through that barrier.

Edward murmured new words into her ear, not those of encouragement as before, but something new: _I want to taste you_.

"You don't have to, if you don't want to," she stumbled. She was high and wanted more of him, but she also felt greedy, like he wasn't getting his fair share.

"This is exactly what I want, but only if you feel comfortable," he said. "We have all night, Bella."

Two years of pent-up want and desire, all of it breaking free in this tiny space of time. Her jeans, caught around her thighs, slipped off and were quickly followed by her plain gray-cotton panties. Edward paused and she opened her eyes, not realizing she had even closed them. She realized this was the first time he'd ever seen her completely naked. She hadn't shaved or waxed or done anything to be pretty for him, and yet his gaze was one of adoration. To him, to a perfect creature, she was herself perfection.

Then he settled himself between her legs, his hands smoothing and cupping her hips, and he kissed the inside of her right thigh. All of this was new, all of it unexplored, and yet he could not linger too long. Bella cried out for him and Edward felt the multiple voices inside him responding and wanting her. He had never done this with any woman, had never brought his lips to the chalice and sipped. It was new for him as well, and he did not realize he would become a conductor with Bella as his orchestra. He played her like a finely-crafted instrument and she sang out in deep groans and shrill cries. He felt the quivering tremors in her legs and pulled forth new songs and louder shouts. There was blood all around him, a pitiful and gauzy membrane separating him from a feast. She was in his mouth, her taste and the promise of a hot gush were he only to bite.

But Edward was not even tempted. He was too distracted by the immediate pleasure at hand and the bucking, shivering body under his lips. Finally she had to pull him away, gasping for air and jerking her body as though she'd suffered electrocution. When he raised his eyes he panicked because she was crying. He pulled himself up to her, worried and on the verge of hysteria, but she just laughed. She was laughing and crying. She hugged him, shaking and happy, and he found himself laughing as well. She was whispering something but even his perfect ears couldn't understand the words. He was too shocked, too off-balance to process the meaning behind the phonemes.

"Yes," she was saying, "yes, I'll marry you."

Edward had been dizzy with ecstasy as well, but still retained a modicum of sensibility whereas Bella seemed brain-damaged. She was euphoric and drunk, he could not put faith in the words of a woman so obviously insane. He tried to quiet her, to stop her from making promises she would later regret. But she caught his eyes with her own, tears wet on her lashes and her chin trembling with a smile.

"I'll marry you, Edward Cullen. I will marry you."

"You're crazy," he murmured, afraid to hope. She laughed, wiping at her tears and pulling him against her.

"Yes, I am crazy," she said, "but you have to believe me. I mean it." She kissed him, laughing and shaking still. Her thoughts were no longer linear but simply explosive and immediate. She had found herself pushing against the membrane of sanity and with a final shudder she had been let through to the other side. It hadn't been anything like what she'd felt in her solitary bedroom or the cloistered bathtub. It had been bright and golden, with clarity and weird lurching shivers. When her brain started working again she'd found herself crying and knowing a single, perfect truth: she had to marry Edward Cullen.

He wiped at her tears and felt his own shoulders shiver, his own body hunch around hers as he felt the useless mechanics of weeping take him over as well. She asked him for the ring, told him to put it on her finger and make it official. She was coherent and awake, but Edward felt as though he himself were dreaming. It took him a frazzled moment to even remember where he had put the ring, he was distracted by the laughing, glossy woman on his new messy bed. He brought her the box and revealed an old Marquise-cut diamond in a simple setting. The band of the ring had been cut and he bent the metal to an estimate of her size. Her fingers were longer and larger than those of his grandmother's. It was one of the last talismans of his mortal life.

He did not realize he was kneeling on the bed, even as he took her left hand in his, running his thumb along the still-shiny tattoo of the _semper augustus_ on her arm. He heard himself as though at a distance.

"Isabella Marie Swan, will you marry me?"

"Yes," she bubbled, sitting up and accepting the ring as it slipped onto her finger, "Yes, I will."

He held her, never taking his eyes from the promise on her finger, and she drifted easily into sleep. After only an hour she stirred, murmuring in a sleepy and blissed-out voice that was sultry and dry. She was hungry, would he join her in the kitchen for a snack? He smiled, offering her his shirt, something he had been long imagining. She did not protest and he snapped a mental photo of Bella wearing his oxford shirt, with the heirloom diamond on her left hand.

She fixed herself a sandwich, giggling girlishly and catching a leg around his body to draw him against her. He could not imagine greater happiness, his hollow-heart was dense with molten metal, burning in his chest. She was his, he was hers. They were entwined. He made a playful joke about "post-coitus appetite", and Bella laughed but said something strange.

"We haven't had _coitus_ yet, though," she said. For an awful heartbeat Edward wondered if she didn't remember the ring, didn't remember anything, had somehow suffered an aneurysm when he wasn't watching. But she played with the diamond and chewed on her sandwich, apparently aware that they were engaged.

"Bella," he asked in confusion, "what do you think we've been doing? Isn't _this_ sex?"

She laughed, "Well, _kind of_. But it isn't real sex, you know? Just foreplay, right?" It seemed so obvious to her.

"It has been satisfactory sex for many couples worldwide," Edward noted, "What did you think sex was?"

"Penetration," she answered, as though this were a test she had long studied, as though sex were a matter of position. She finished her sandwich and leaned on the kitchen counter, "_You_ inside _me._" She said, "That's what sex is."

"I was inside you," he answered quietly. She realized that she was afraid to say the word and she gave a clipped laugh at her own reluctance,

"Your penis!" She said, "Sex is a penis and a…" then she thought about it. _No_, her brain told her, _that__'s a form of sex, but it isn't all of it_. She thought of the many couples who had gone before her in history. She thought of the lesbians she had known in Phoenix and those that she suspected lived in Forks. They didn't need a penis for permission, did they? And what she had felt, what they had shared in his bed, that didn't feel _virginal_.

It was funny and anti-climactic, but Bella realized that she wasn't a virgin anymore. She had crossed a boundary with Edward and it had been so easy she hadn't even noticed. Edward had been trying to explain to her, trying to tell her beforehand but she hadn't really caught it. Sex wasn't a matter of insert-tab-A-into-slot-B. There was a lot more going on, a sort of cosmic sharing and a mutual shivering. They'd done that. She looked into Edward's eyes, her mouth open.

This was the man she had had sex with, to whom she had lost her virginity just an hour earlier. As she said it to herself, let the truth of it ring out, a fierce pride and love filled her. Everything was nodding in agreement, recognizing the conclusion as right and good. He was the one. She looked at the ring on her finger and marriage didn't seem like a silly legal contract any more.

"We _did_ have sex," she confirmed in a sort of slow awe. He smiled, and she would have bet he'd be blushing if he weren't undead. _I had sex_, she thought again to herself, _I am sexually active. I have sex._ Then, "You said we had all night?" She grinned and let herself be carried up the stairs. Laying on his bed she spread her legs and Edward lay beside her, his mouth on her own. As he pushed his fingers inside her she twisted the sheets into her fists and thought to herself, _I am having sex with Edward Cullen_.

* * *

Edward couldn't wait for her to wake up the next morning. He'd been watching the body keep her alive, watching the flecks of gold build and cake along her black eyelashes. He'd watched a glistening string of drool escape the corner of her slack mouth. He'd stared at the diamond on a band that would need replacing to accommodate Bella's fingers, and he'd traced his cool fingers along the exposed white skin of Bella's soft, slightly deflated body. But all that staring and breathing and tracing hadn't woken her up. She stirred to wipe the drool off her mouth with the back of her wrist and Edward took his chance.

"Good morning," he murmured in his best baritone. Bella hated being woken early and her brow knit in disagreement. It was only two hours past sunrise. He tried to kiss her forehead but she made a groaning sound and turned away from him. She was something altogether different in the mornings.

"I wanted to make you breakfast," he continued, "What would you like?"

"Two more hours' sleep," Bella slurred, stuffing her head under a pillow.

"Ahh," Edward smiled, "_traditional_. Okay, but I'll be back here in exactly two hours and then you'll _have_ to get up. Can't waste our day sleeping, can we?" Bella grunted and fell back asleep. Two hours later Edward alighted the stairs with a tray holding hot, fresh apricot bread, honey comb, milk he had coerced from a cow some miles away, and black coffee.

"Now," he said gently, reviving the snoring lump in his silken bed, "my princess awakes."

"Don't call me 'princess'," she grumbled. But the smell of crude, black coffee woke her up and she sat up, gathering the blankets around her naked form. Her grumbles turned to appreciative hums and, rubbing the cake out of her eyes, a gasp of delight.

"Edward!" She laughed. The breakfast was beautiful and smelled delicious. It made her a little sad, him having to watch her and hope it tasted okay. She put on one of his shirts and ate her fill while he described the difficulty of milking a cow when his hands were so cold. Finally, with a satisfied sigh and leaning back on the lush pillows, Bella said what Edward had been waiting for.

"So what do we do today?"

"Don't be angry with me," he warned, holding up his hands in a defensive gesture. It had the opposite reaction on Bella but before she could speak he continued, "You had a… _naive_ understanding of sex, and I wanted to spend all last night showing you that my, _ahem_, is just a helpful prop. Not a necessary ingredient."

"Well you did a lovely and fine job of that," she murmured, failing to keep the smile off her face or the wicked fire from lighting in her belly.

"I didn't want you to _rely_ on such an apparatus, but I also didn't want to deprive you. Recently and with Alice's advice, I invested in an _olisbos_." Bella was having a hard time understanding Edward's expression, it was a mixture of trepidation and excitement.

"A whatsit?" She asked. He looked uncomfortable but snuggled closer to her.

"A helper, of sorts. A substitute… um…" he reached across her to the nightstand, opening a drawer and motioning for her to look inside.

Bella peered over her cup of coffee and almost dropped it.

"A dildo!" She exclaimed. There was a purple silicone play toy laying limp and somewhat menacing in the drawer. She was afraid to touch it.

"I do hate that word," Edward muttered, "the etymology is mysterious but it sounds like it must be crude Old English. It's about as delicate and nuanced as _fart_." Bella picked up the purple "helper". It jiggled ever so slightly and was heavier than she had anticipated. _Purple_?

"It's on the smaller scale," he quickly began to explain, "because I wanted something realistic and appropriate to my own dimensions. I didn't want to deprive you of any experience."

It didn't look small to Bella. Despite Renee's worldly upbringing, Bella couldn't really imagine _how_ they would use this… thing. It felt bizarre and ridiculous, not sexy at all.

"We don't have to use it until you are ready," Edward said, taking it from her. She stared at this picture. Her lover, a chilly vampire in a boy's body with early twentieth century sensibilities, holding a bright purple silicone dildo.

"Humans have been manufacturing members since the Greeks," Edward explained calmly, "Amorous arrows for either sex made from various materials. When I was buying this I had another human memory. At the brothel there was a woman who showed me a lithograph, _De Figuris Veneris, _in which two women are utilizing such a device_. _They aren't a recent invention in the slightest, Bella. This is old technology," he gave the dildo a little shake but then looked somewhat embarrassed despite his confidence, "I just wish we had a better name for it. Pseudo phallus, substitute something…"

"What was it that you first called it?" She asked, feeling curious now and taking the purple phallus back into her own hands. It had veins.

"_Olisbos_, from the Greek 'to glide' or 'slip'." Bella swallowed, feeling a pressure build up inside her. She was glad she hadn't filled up too much on breakfast.

"How much time did you say we had to play with this?" She gave a nervous smile and Edward cleared the breakfast tray from the bed.

It was different. But later Bella would realize that every single time felt different, and each time felt absolutely new. She was nervous in a way she hadn't been the night before. Suddenly she was worried about her performance, about whether it would hurt and what she should do, about _noises_. Edward, for his part, had done meticulous research but still found himself utterly ignorant when it came to Bella's body. He knew that she should be relaxed if they were going to try this thing out, and that to actually bring Bella to orgasm would cause a contraction, negating all the hard work of relaxation. But beyond that he had to listen. He listened to her heartbeat and her breathing, he felt her muscles tense and relax, and he asked her,

"Are you ready?"

"Yes," she trembled, ready as she'd ever be. Edward crawled alongside her kissing her forehead and keeping his eyes on her face.

"I'll need your help," he murmured, placing her hand on the synthetic piece, "We'll go slowly."

She winced and sighed, bit her lip and adjusted her hips. Some of it was awkward, trying to find the right angle and Edward finding a comfortable grip, but eventually Bella let go, satisfied with his steering. Her body jiggled and made a soft slapping noise. She opened her eyes in chagrin but Edward's nearness broke the tension. He was with her. She laughed and then groaned, giving herself over to giggles and shivers. It was different, and while she couldn't find the rush and scream that he'd been able to give her otherwise, it was nevertheless pleasant.

Edward felt like he had absorbed some of Jasper's powers. As he kissed and caressed his fiancee he felt his own satisfaction from hers. This was enough for him, he told himself, and in a way it was. There was a stronger intensity to their lovemaking in the absence of Edward's own orgasm. If Bella tipped over the edge she could recover easily, and unless she declared herself exhausted there was no definable end to their sex play. She was curious and eager, but nervous and embarrassed by her own body. Edward calmed her, kissing the rolls and stretch marks, whispering words about how beautiful she was. They were true words and Bella believed him, losing herself to his touch.

"Are you sore?" He asked over lunch. She was eating a cold chicken sandwich on the rest of the apricot bread.

"No, but I do feel different." They had mostly explored, finding positions and angles that felt comfortable. It had been slow and relaxed, timorous and nervous. She'd giggled and he'd laughed, both of them new and excitable. It wasn't sexy, but it was theirs, something they had shared together.

After lunch, Bella called Charlie and asked to stay for dinner while Edward imitated Alice in the background. He did a dead-on impression and Charlie agreed, letting his daughter stay in the empty mansion with her new fiance and a purple silicone dildo.

They watched TV together, snuggled and sleepy. But as soon as Bella digested her lunch she felt hungry and wicked. She wanted to feel sexy. The lovemaking had been sensual and careful, but she wanted something different, especially while they had a privacy which might never again occur.

"Rough?" Edward asked, he would be blushing if he weren't so pale.

"Not necessarily," she toyed with the buttons on his shirt she was wearing, "I just…" she felt shy and girlish but then remembered the ring on her finger, the promise they'd made together. She took a deep breath. For all his propriety and insistence on delicate language, Edward perked up last night when Bella was filthy. With a playful smile she said, "Before your family comes home I want to fuck."

* * *

The next time she went to see Jacob she was feeling unusually upbeat. It was Monday and she'd just gotten out of her first exam and it had gone well. It was still early afternoon but Edward was out hunting, taking advantage of his day off during exams week.

This would be the first time she'd see Jacob since having sex with Edward she was terrified that he might know somehow, that he could smell a change in her. She felt different. She felt… lurid. It wasn't an altogether unpleasant feeling, but it was just another secret she had to keep from Jacob, another burden added to their silence.

She took confidence in the little things. Today, it was her favorite running weather: warm with a light rain. She was sexually active and had a pretty little tattoo on her arm. Edward had taken the ring with him, he was getting the band replaced to her measurements and they planned on springing the news later this week.

Jacob put on a smile and she felt like she'd passed another test. Relieved, they made their way to the woods for another jog, this one scheduled to be long and arduous with a slower pace. The "purple helper" had left Bella a little sore, but she hoped running would fix that. But as soon as they rounded the curve and felt the whip of sea-salt air he turned on her. His eyes were accusing and hurt. Somehow he knew. Bella drew back instinctively in shame.

"Semper Augustus?" he snarled, grabbing her left wrist with the indelible flower. So it was that, he was angry about the tattoo. It had taken him two weeks to track down the anonymous painting, but now he knew the story. "_Always majestic?_ I looked it up. It took forever to track down that painting but now I know what it is. A pretty little infection that drives people crazy and leaves the flower sterile."

"It seemed apt," she responded resolutely.

"Of course it's apt! That's the whole point, it is terrible and you know it! You want to be one of them because they are _pretty monsters_? That's why you're choosing him? I never thought you'd be so shallow!"

"That's not the reason!" She cried out, trying to twist her wrist free of his grasp. But he'd taught her all the escapes, and he knew how to keep hold. She kicked out at his shin but he stepped out of her range and she fell forward against him.

Then he grabbed her. He grabbed her by the shoulders, pinning them to her side so that she couldn't use her arms as a lever to break free. He pulled her against him and in a final, desperate attempt to remind her what living felt like.

"This is for your own good," he said in a voice that frightened her, a voice that was not his own.

He kissed her. _These lips are warm_, he pressed his mouth against her disagreeing one. _This body is alive_, he coiled his muscles around her until she stopped resisting. _Remember me_, he urged as he kissed her, _remember when you once wanted this_. Finally he released her, his last hope for magic spent. His frantic brown eyes searched her pallid, empty face. She wiped her mouth and then cocked her arm into a piston, slamming all her bodyweight behind her right hook.

There was a crunch as she fractured her index knuckle. It was a good hook and she'd aimed for Jacob's nose, easily dislocating it. But in the burst of pain and star-fire he didn't feel the cartilage give way or hear his nose lose its straight edge. He heard them break, the two of them and whatever they had once shared. She was lost to him.

Bella let out a howl and staggered away from Jacob, who quickly realigned his nose so it would heal properly in the next hour. The blood trickling from his nostril had already stopped.

"Bella, we have to get you to a hospital," he said, moving toward her to see the damage on her hand.

"Get away from me!" She shouted, "Don't touch me!" She looked at him and he recognized her expression. It was the one she had when she'd thought he was a murderer, when she thought he and the other wolves had been killing backpackers. She was afraid of him. She was ready to fight him, but afraid of what he might do.

"I'm not going to hurt you," he said, raising his arms in a peace offering. She held up the swelling fist defiantly,

"What do you call this? What do you call what you just did to me? You _attacked_ me, Jacob!"

"Bella, please, let me drive you—"

"Get away from me!" She screamed again, and she turned, running as fast as she could back to the truck. He'd violated her. He'd used his body to overpower her, he'd taken the advantage. Even if it was only a kiss, even if she had once kissed him voluntarily, this was a terrible new betrayal. She couldn't trust Jacob anymore.

He jogged behind her, a few paces back but trying to apologize. She couldn't fish the keys out of her pocket, cradling her injured hand against her middle. Finally, with a jangle she pulled the keys free only for them to fall under the truck. She swore angrily and kicked the tire, but Jacob was already retrieving the keys.

"You can't drive manual with that hand," he said. She hated him because he was right. She didn't want to be alone with Jacob anymore, let alone in the claustrophobic interior of her truck with him at the wheel. What if he lunged at her again? What if he wanted more? But she was on his land now, she had no other allies.

"Just drive me home," she said, stomping over to the passenger side. He raced to open the door for her and she snarled, sitting as far away from Jacob as possible in the small cab. As he drove her back to her house she fumbled slowly with the ancient cell phone in her coat pocket, eventually finding the number she needed.

"Esme? Is Carlisle at work today? Okay. Yeah, I think I broke something but it's minor. No," she assured her future mother-in-law, "No, nothing bad. You know me," she affected a laugh that was so glib Jacob stared at her. She was still scowling. Edward had taught her some acting. "Thanks," she continued, "I'll have Charlie drive me, I'll be by within the hour." She just managed to hang up before the phone dropped to the floor of the cab and she leaned her head against the window, exhausted from the lie.

She didn't mention what Jacob had done. She could have told Esme, could have turned the whole Cullen clan against this vulnerable half-outcast werewolf, but she covered for him.

"Bella," Jacob began.

"Don't you fucking talk to me, Jacob. I thought you were better than that. You deserve to keep that nose broken as a reminder of what you did to me."

"I—"

"Shut up," she ordered angrily, tears springing to her eyes and her hand hurting like she'd broken all the bones and not just the knuckle, "You shut the hell up, Jacob Black! Listen to me, I loved you! I fought for you when Sam took you away and I listened to you when you told me he wasn't as bad as you thought. You were always my friend, but Edward was always the _one_. Him! I wanted to stay friends but you won't let me, I wanted to change your mind but you won't listen. _I__'m poisoned?_" She accused, "Look at yourself! You're a bigot like your dad! You _assaulted_ me, Jake. I expected better."

"I'm sorry—"

"Shut up. I don't want to hear it."

He parked the truck and insisted on walking her to the door. She didn't want to touch him and her cringing was far worse than the impact of her right-hook.

"They'll kill you if I tell them," she said, "Charlie. Edward. Even Carlisle might just tear your head off. I'll protect you this last time but it's over Jake. We're over." She wasn't wearing the ring but she could have really hurt Jacob right then if she wanted to. She could have spit out that she'd fucked Edward, she could have said she was marrying him, that she would one day be a vampire like him. Instead, she left him on the doorstep and he stayed, frozen and listening, as she called out to Charlie that she needed a ride to the hospital. She mostly told the truth.

"I think I broke something when I hit Jake," she said.

"Were you sparring?" Charlie asked, Jacob could hear him grabbing something from the freezer and wrapping it in a tea towel before bringing it to Bella. Jacob leaned backward into the shadows.

"No. He was insulting Edward again and I lost my temper. It's my fault, but it's over between us. We can't be friends."

"I'm sorry, Bells. You used to be so close." They were coming outside and Jacob slipped to the back of the house, still eavesdropping.

"I didn't want to have to choose," she said, maybe knowing that Jacob was still listening, "but he made me. And the choice was always going to be Edward."

Jacob twisted his nose. _Let it heal wrong_, he thought to himself.


End file.
